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By J, Jacobs

English Fairy Tales

Celtic Fairy Tales

More English Fairy Tales

More Celtic Fairy Tales

Indian Fairy Tales

Europa's Fairy Tales

" Do tell us a fairy tale, ganpa.**
'' Well, will you be good and quiet if I do? "
" Of course we will ; we are always good when you are tell-
ing us fairy tales.''

" Well, here goes. — Once upon a time, though it wasn't in
my time, and it wasn't in your time, and it wasn't in anybody

else's time, there was a "

'* But that would be no time at all.**
** That's fairy tale time.'*

^The J^arshaL tells how he killed theTraqon^^

EUROPA'S
FAIRY BOOK

RESTORED AND RETOLD BY

JOSEPH JACOBS

DONE INTO PICTURES BY

JOHN D. BATTEN

•.." . ;* o •-

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

Ubc mntcl^erbocker press

\aS''^

the; NE^jT YORK

ASTOF!, LENOX AND

TIJLDBN FOUNDATIONS

R 1987 L

JOSEPH JACOBS
Second Impression

Ubc Iftnfcftetbocftec press, Iftew Jl?orft

Peggy, and Madge, and Pearl, and Maggie,
AND Marguerite, and Peggotty, and Meg,
and Marjory, and Daisy, and Pegg, and

MARGARET HAYS

(How many granddaughters does that make?)

My Dear Little Peggy: —

Many, many, many years ago I wrote a book
for your Mummey — when she was my little May —
telling the fairy tales which the little boys and
girls of England used to hear from their mvimmeys,
who had heard them from their mummeys years
and years and years before. My friend Mr. Batten
made such pretty pictures for it — but of course
you know the book — it has '' Tom, Tit, Tot *' and
" The little old woman that went to market," and
all those tales you like. Now I have been making
a fairy-tale book for your own self, and here it is.
This time I have told again the fairy tales that all
the mummeys of Europe have been telling their
little Peggys, Oh for ever so many years! They
must have liked them because they have spread
from Germany to Russia, from Italy to France,
from Holland to Scotland, and from England to
Norway, and from every country in Europe that
you will read about in your geography to every
other one. Mr. Batten, who made the pictiires
for your mummey's book, has made some more for

yotirs"— isn*t it good of him when he has never
seen you?

Though this book is your very, very own, you
will not mind if other little girls and boys also
get copies of it from their mummeys and papas
and ganmas and ganpas, for when you meet some
of them you will, all of you, have a nimiber of
common friends like " The Cinder-Maid," or *' The
Earl of Cattenborough," or ''The Master-Maid,"
and you can talk to one another about them so
that you are old friends at once. Oh, won't that
be nice? And when one of these days you go over
the Great Sea, in whatever land you go, you will
find girls and boys, as well as grown-ups, who will
know all of these tales, even if they have different
names. Won't that be nice too ?

And when you tell your new friends here or
abroad of these stories that you and they will know
so well, do not forget to tell them that you have a
book, all of your very own, which was made up
specially for you of these old, old stories by your
old, old

Ganpa.

P.S. — Do you hear me calling as I always do,
"Peggy, Peggy"? Then you must answer as
usual, "Ganpa, Ganpa.'*

PREFACE

EVER since — almost exactly a hundred years
ago — the Grimms produced their Fairy
Tale Book, folk-lorists have been engaged
in making similar collections for all the other
countries of Europe, outside Germany, till there is
scarcely a nook or a corner in the whole continent
that has not been ransacked for these products of
the popular fancy. The Grimms themselves and
most of their followers have pointed out the simi-
larity or, one might even say, the identity of plot
and incident of many of these tales throughout
the European Folk-Lore field. Von Hahn, when
collecting the Greek and Albanian Fairy Tales in
1864, brought together these common "formulae"
of the European Folk-Tale. These were supple-
mented by Mr. S. Baring-Gould in 1868, and I
myself in 1892 contributed an even fuller list to
the Hand Book of Folk-Lore, Most, if not all of
these formulae, have been found in all the countries
of Europe where folk-tales have been collected.
In 1893 Miss M. Roalfe Cox brought together, in a
volume of the Folk-Lore Society, no less than 345
variants of "Cinderella" and kindred stories show-
ing how wide-spread this particular formula was

Preface

throughout Europe and how substantially identical
the various incidents as reproduced in each particu-
lar country.

It has occurred to me that it would be of great
interest and, for folk-lore purposes, of no little
importance, to bring together these common Folk-
Tales of Europe, retold in such a way as to bring
out the original form from which all the variants
were derived. I am, of course, aware of the difficulty
and hazardous nature of such a proceeding; yet
it is fundamentally the same as that by which
scholars are accustomed to restore the Ur-text
from the variants of different families of MSS. and
still more similar to the process by which Higher
Critics attempt to restore the original narratives of
Holy Writ. Every one who has had to tell fairy
tales to children will appreciate the conservative
tendencies of the child mind ; every time you vary
an incident the children will cry out, "That was
not the way you told us before/' The Folk-Tale
collections can therefore be assumed to retain the
original readings with as much fidelity as most
MSS. That there was such an original rendering
eminating from a single folk artist no serious
student of Miss Cox's volume can well doubt.
When one finds practically the same **tags" of
verse in such different dialects as Danish and
Romaic, German and Italian, one cannot imagine
that these sprang up independently in Denmark,
Greece, Germany, and Florence. The same

Preface vii

phenomenon is shown in another field of Folk-
Lore where, as the late Mr. Newell showed, the
same rhymes are used to brighten up the same
children's games in Barcelona and in Boston; one
cannot imagine them springing up independently
in both places. So, too, when the same incidents
of a fairy tale follow in the same artistic concatena-
tion in Scotland, and in Sicily, in Brittany, and in
Albania, one cannot but assume that the original
form of the story was hit upon by one definite
literary artist among the folk. What I have at-
tempted to do in this book is to restore the origi-
nal form, which by a sort of international selection
has spread throughout all the European folks.

But while I have attempted thus to restore the
original substance of the European Folk-Tales, I
have ever had in mind that the particular form in
which they are to appear is to attract English-
speaking children. I have, therefore, utilized the
experience I had some years ago in collecting and
retelling the Fairy Tales of the English Folk-Lore
field {English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy
Tales), in order to tell these new tales in the way
which English-speaking children have abundantly
shown they enjoy. In other words, while the plot
and incidents are "common form" throughout
Europe, the manner in which I have told the stories
is, so far as I have been able to imitate it, that of
the English story-teller.

I have indeed been conscious throughout of my

viii Preface

audience of little ones and of the reverence due to
them. Whenever an original incident, so far as I
could penetrate to it, seemed to me too crudely-
primitive for the children of the present day, I
have had no scruples in modifying or mollifying it,
drawing attention to such Bowdlerization in the
somewhat elaborate notes at the end of the volume,
which I trust will be found of interest and of use
to the serious student of the Folk-Tale.

It must, of course, be understood that the tales I
now give are only those found practically identical
in all European countries. Besides these there are
others which are peculiar to each of the countries
or only found in areas covered by cognate languages
like the Celtic or the Scandinavian. Of these I
have already covered the English and the Celtic
fields, and may, one of these days, extend my col-
lections to the French and Scandinavian or the
Slavonic fields. Meanwhile it may be assumed that
the stories that have pleased all European children
for so long a time are, by a sort of international
selection, best fitted to survive, and that the Fairy
Tales that follow are the choicest gems in the Fairy
Tale field. I can only express the hope that I have
succeeded in placing them in an appropriate setting.

It remains only to thank those of my colleagues
and friends who have aided in various ways in the
preparation of this volume, though of course their
co-operation does not, in the slightest, imply
responsibility for or approval of the method of

Preface

treatment I have applied to the old, old stories.
Miss Roalfe Cox was good enough to look over my
reconstruction of "Cinderella" and suggest altera-
tions in it. Prof. Crane gave me permission to
utilize the version of the " Dancing Water," in his
Italian Popular Tales. Sir James G. Frazer looked
through my restoration of the "Language of
Animals," which was suggested by him many years
ago; and Mr. E. S. Hartland criticized the Swan-
Maiden story. I have also to thank by old friend
and publisher. Dr. G. H. Putnam, for the personal
interest he has taken in the progress of the book.

J- J-

YONKERS, N. Y.

July, 1915.

CONTENTS

PAGB

Preface . . , . . . . . v

List of Illustrations xv

I. — Cinder-Maid i

11. — All Change 13

III. — The King of the Fishes . . .19

IV. — Scissors 31

V. — Beauty and the Beast .... 34

VI. — Reynard and Bruin . . . .42

VII. — The Dancing Water, Singing Apple, and

Speaking Bird . . . .51

VIII. — The Language of Animals ... 66

IX. — The Three Soldiers .... 72

X. — A Dozen at a Blow .... 81

XL — The Earl of Cattenborough . . 90

XIL — The Swan Maidens .... 98

XIII. — Androcles and the Lion . . .107

xii Contents

PAGE

XIV. — Day Dreaming

. 110

XV.— Keep Cool ....

. 115

XVI.— The Master Thief

. 121

XVII. — The Unseen Bridegroom

. 129

XVIIL— The Master-Maid

. 142

XIX.— A Visitor from Paradise

. 159

XX. — Inside Again

. 165

XXI. — John the True

. 170

XXII. — Johnnie and Grizzle .

. i8o

XXIIL— The Clever Lass

. 188

XXIV.— Thumbkin ....

. 194

XXV.— Snowwhite ....

. 201

Notes

• 215

List of Incidents ....

. 263

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Marshal Tells how he Killed the Dragon

Frontispiece

The Herald Announces the Court Ball .

The Soldier Lays a Honey Trap

The Step-Sister Cuts off her Toe

" Will you Mind my Pea? "...

The Seven-Headed Dragon

The Marshal Tells how he Killed the Dragon

Scissors

Beauty and the Beast

Reynard

Bruin Gets a Beating

Bruin Carries Reynard

The Foster Mother

The King Begs Pardon

The Girl and the Frog

I
6

9
13
19

25
31
39
42

45
46

55
64
66

xiv Illustrations

PAGE

The Pope is Elected . . . , . 70

The Magic Purse . . . . . .73

The Princess Finds Horns on her Head . . 79

The Unicorn 81

The Earl of Cattenborough will be Pleased to

Partake of a Potato ..... 90

The Cat and the Ogre ..... 96

"Had you not better Throw me into the Mill-
stream?" ....... 97

The Child Finds the Feather Dress ... 98

The Dolphin who Came Late . . . .102

East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon . .105

Androcles and the Lion . . . . .107

D ay-Dreaming no

The Pig's Tail 120

The Dummy 121

Anima Goes down the Hole . . . .129

The Lamp ........ 133

The Dog 139

The Casket 140

The Master-Maid with the Glass Axe . . 142

Illustrations xv

PAGE

The Prince Wants his Lunch . . . .145

The Giant Tries to Drink the Stream . .154

The Visitor 159

Up the Tree 163

The Snake 165

The Three Ravens 170

The Wounded Dragon 179

The Witch 180

The Duck 187

** Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Who Is the

Fairest OF us All?" 201

Snowwhite and the Three Dwarfs . . .211

The Herald Announces the Court Ball

THE CINDER-MAID

ONCE upon a time, though it was not in my
time or in your time, or in anybody else's
time, there was a great King who had an
only son, the Prince andHeir who was about to come
of age. So the King sent round a herald who should
blow his trumpet at every four corners where two
roads met. And when the people came together
he would call out, **0 yes, O yes, O yes, know ye
that His Grace the King will give on Monday
sennight" — that meant seven nights or a week
after — "a Royal Ball to which all maidens of
noble birth are hereby summoned; and be it fur-
thermore known unto you that at this ball his

2 Europa's Fairy Book

Highness the Prince will select unto himself a lady
that shall be his bride and our future Queen.
God save the King."

Now there was among the nobles of the King's
Court one who had married twice, and by the
first marriage he had but one daughter, and as she
was growing up her father thought that she ought
to have some one to look after her. So he married
again, a lady with two daughters, and his new wife,
instead of caring for his daughter, thought only
of her own and favoured them in every way. She
would give them beautiful dresses but none to her
step-daughter who had only to wear the cast-off
clothes of the other two. The noble's daughter
was set to do all the drudgery of the house, to
attend the kitchen fire, and had naught to sleep
on but the heap of cinders raked out in the scul-
lery; and that is why they called her Cinder-Maid.
And no one took pity on her and she would go and
weep at her mother's grave where she had planted
a hazel tree, under which she sat.

You can imagine how excited they all were
when they heard the King's proclamation called
out by the herald. *'What shall we wear, mother;
what shall we wear.?" cried out the two daughters,
and they all began talking about which dress
should suit the one and what dress should suit the
other, but when the father suggested that Cinder-
Maid should also have a dress they all cried out:
"What, Cinder-Maid going to the King's Ball;

The Cinder«Maid $

why, look at her, she would only disgrace us all.'*
And so her father held his peace.

Now when the night came for the Royal Ball
Cinder-Maid had to help the two sisters to dress
in their fine dresses and saw them drive off in the
carriage with her father and their mother. But
she went to her own mother's grave and sat beneath
the hazel tree and wept and cried out :

^*Tree o'mine, O tree o'me,
With my tears I've watered thee;
Make me a lady fair to see.
Dress me as splendid as can be."

And with that the little bird on the tree called out
to her,

"Cinder-Maid, Cinder-Maid, shake the tree,
Open the first nut that you see."

So Cinder-Maid shook the tree and the first nut
that fell she took up and opened, and what do you
think she saw? — a beautiful silk dress blue as the
heavens, all embroidered with stars, and two little
lovely shoon made of shining copper. And when
she had dressed herself the hazel tree opened and
from it came a coach all made of copper with four
milk-white horses, with coachman and footmen
all complete. And as she drove away the little
bird called out to her:

4 Europa's Fairy Book

"Be home, be home ere mid-o'night
Or else again you'll be a fright."

When Cinder-Maid entered the ball-room she
was the loveliest of all the ladies and the Prince,
who had been dancing with her step-sisters, would
only dance with her. But as it came towards
midnight Cinder-Maid remembered what the little
bird had told her and slipped away to her carriage.
And when the Prince missed her he went to the
guards at the Palace door and told them to follow
the carriage. But Cinder-Maid when she saw
this, called out:

" Mist behind and light before,
Guide me to my father's door."

And when the Prince's soldiers tried to follow her
there came such a mist that they couldn't see their
hands before their faces. So they couldn't find
which way Cinder-Maid went.

When her father and step-mother and two sisters
came home after the ball they could talk of nothing
but the lovely lady: ** Ah, would not you have liked
to have been there?" said the sisters to Cinder-
Maid as she helped them to take off their fine
dresses. "There was a most lovely lady with a
dress like the heavens and shoes of bright copper,
and the Prince would dance with none but her;
and when midnight came she disappeared and the
Prince could not find her. He is going to give a

The Cinder-Maid 5

second ball in the hope that she will come again.
Perhaps she will not, and then we will have our
chance."

When the time of the second Royal Ball camxe
round the same thing happened as before; the
sisters teased Cinder-Maid saying, "Wouldn't
you like to come with us?" and drove off again as
before. And Cinder-Maid went again to the hazel
tree over her mother's grave and cried :

"Tree o'mine, O tree o'me,
Shiver and shake, dear little tree
Make me a lady fair to see,
Dress me as splendid as can be."

And then the little bird on the tree called out:

*' Cinder-Maid, Cinder-Maid, shake the tree,
Open the first nut that you see."

But this time she found a dress all golden brown
like the earth embroidered with flowers, and her
shoon were made of silver; and when the carriage
came from the tree, lo and behold, that was made
of silver too, drawn by black horses with trappings
all of silver, and the lace on the coachman's and
footmen's liveries was also of silver; and when
Cinder-Maid went to the ball the Prince would
dance with none but her; and when midnight came
round she fled as before. But the Prince, hoping

6 Europa's Fairy Book

to prevent her running away, had ordered the
soldiers at the foot of the stair-case to pour out
honey on the stairs so that her shoes would stick
in it. But Cinder-Maid leaped from stair to stair

Tile Soldier Lays a Honey Trap

and got away just in time, calling out as the sol-
diers tried to follow her:

" Mist behind and light before,
Guide me to my father's door."

The Cinder-Maid 7

And when her sisters got home they told her once
more of the beautiful lady that had come in a
silver coach and silver shoon and in a dress all
embroidered with flowers: ''Ah, wouldn't you have
liked to have been there?" said they.

Once again the Prince gave a great ball in the
hope that his unknown beauty would come to it.
All happened as before; as soon as the sisters had
gone Cinder-Maid went to the hazel tree over her
mother's grave and called out:

"Tree o'mine, O tree o'me
Shiver and quiver, dear little tree;
Make me a lady fair to see,
Dress me as splendid as can be."

And then the little bird appeared and said:

*' Cinder-Maid, Cinder-Maid, shake the tree
Open the first nut that you see."

And when she opened the nut in it was a dress of
silk green as the sea with waves upon it, and her
shoes this time were made of gold ; and when the
coach came out of the tree it was also made of
gold, with gold trappings for the horses and for
the retainers. And as she drove off the little bird
from the tree called out :

"Be home, be home ere mid-o'night
Or else again you'll be a fright."

8 Europa's Fairy Book

Now this time, when Cinder-Maid came to the
ball, she was as desirous to dance only with the
Prince as he with her, and so, when midnight came
round, she had forgotten to leave till the clock
began to strike, one — two — three — four — five —
six, — and then she began to run away down the
stairs as the clock struck, eight— nine — ten. But
the Prince had told his soldiers to put tar upon
the lower steps of the stairs; and as the clock
struck eleven her shoes stuck in the tar, and when
she jumped to the foot of the stairs one of her
golden shoes was left behind, and just then the
clock struck TWELVE, and the golden coach,
with its horses and footmen, disappeared, and
the beautiful dress of Cinder-Maid changed again
into her ragged clothes and she had to run home
with only one golden shoe.

You can imagine how excited the sisters were
when they came home and told Cinder-Maid all
about it, how that the beautiful lady had come in
a golden coach in a dress like the sea, with golden
shoes, and how all had disappeared at midnight
except the golden shoe. "Ah, wouldn't you have
liked to have been there .^" said they.

Now when the Prince found out that he could
not keep his lady-love nor trace where she had
gone he spoke to his father and showed him the
golden shoe, and told him that he would never
marry any one but the maiden who could wear that
shoe. So the King, his father, ordered the herald

The Cinder-Maid

to take round the golden shoe upon a velvet cushion
and to go to every four corners where two streets
met and sound the trumpet and call out: "O yes,

ine Step-Sister Cuts off her Toe

O yes, 0 yes, be it known unto you all that what-
soever lady of noble birth can fit this shoe upon
her foot shall become the bride of his Highness

lo Europa's Fairy Book

the Prince and our future Queen. God save

the King."

And when the herald came to the house of Cinder-
Maid's father the eldest of her two step-sisters
tried on the golden shoe. But it was much too
small for her, as it was for every other lady that
had tried it up to that time; but she went up into
her room and with a sharp knife cut off one of her
toes and part of her heel, and then fitted her foot
into the shoe, and when she came down she showed
it to the herald, who sent a message to the Palace
saying that the lady had been found who could
wear the golden shoe. Thereupon the Prince
jumped at once upon his horse and rode to the
house of Cinder-Maid's father. But when he saw
the step-sister with the golden shoe, "Ah," he
said, " but this is not the lady." " But," she said,
*' you promised to marry the one that could wear
the golden shoe." And the Prince could say
nothing, but offered to take her on his horse to his
father's Palace, for in those days ladies used to ride
on a pillion at the back of the gentleman riding
on horseback. Now as they were riding towards
the Palace her foot began to drip with blood, and
the little bird from the hazel tree that had followed
them called out:

"Turn and peep, turn and peep.
There's blood within the shoe ;
A bit is cut from off the heel
And a bit from off the toe."

The Cinder-Maid ii

And the Prince looked down and saw the blood
streaming from her shoe and then he knew that
this was not his true bride, and he rode back to
the house of Cinder-Maid's father; and then the
second sister tried her chance ; but when she found
that her foot wouldn't fit the shoe she did the same
as her sister, but all happened as before. The
little bird called out:

"Turn and peep, turn and peep,
There's blood within the shoe;
A bit is cut from off the heel
And a bit from off the toe."

And the Prince took her back to her mother's
house, and then he asked, "Have you no other
daughter?" and the sisters cried out, *'No, sir."
But the father said, "Yes, I have another daugh-
ter." And the sisters cried out, "Cinder-Maid,
Cinder-Maid, she could not wear that shoe."
But the Prince said, "As she is of noble birth she
has a right to try the shoe." So the herald went
down to the kitchen and found Cinder-Maid ; and
when she saw her golden shoe she took it from him
and put it on her foot, which it fitted exactly; and
then she took the other golden shoe from under-
neath the cinders where she had hidden it and put
that on too. Then the herald knew that she was
the true bride of his master; and he took her up-
stairs to where the Prince was; when he saw her
face, he knew that she was the lady of his love. So

12 Europa's Fairy Book

he took her behind him upon his horse; and as
they rode to the Palace, the Uttle bird from the
hazel tree cried out:

" Some cut their heel, and some cut their toe,
But she sat by the fire who could wear the shoe."

And so they were married and hved happy ever
afterwards.

" Will you Mind my Pea? "

ALL CHANGE

THERE was once a man who was the laziest
man in all the world. He wouldn't take
off his clothes when he went to bed be-
cause he didn't want to have to put them on again.
He wouldn't raise his cup to his lips but went down
and sucked up his tea without carrying the cup.
He wouldn't play any sports because he said they
made him sweat. And he wouldn't work with his
hands for the same reason. But at last he found
that he couldn't get anything to eat unless he did
some work for it. So he hired himself out to a
farmer for the season. But all through the har-

14 Europa's Fairy Book

vest he ate as much and he worked as little as he
could ; and when the fall came and he went to get
his wages from his master all he got was a single
pea. "What do you mean by giving me this?"
he said to his master. "Why, that is all that your
labor is worth," was the reply. "You have eaten
as much as you have earned." " None of your lip,"
said the man; "give me my pea; at any rate I have
earned that." So when he got it he went to an inn
by the roadside and said to the landlady, "Can
you give me lodging for the night, me and my pea ? "
"Well, no," said the landlady, "I haven't got a
bed free, but I can take care of your pea for you."
No sooner said than done. The pea was lodged
with the landlady, and the laziest man went and
lay in a barn near-by.

The landlady put the pea upon a dresser and
left it there, and a chicken wandering by saw it
and jumped up on the dresser and ate it. So when
the laziest man called the next day and asked for
his pea the landlady couldn't find it. She said,
"The chicken must have swallowed it." "Well,
I want my pea," said the man. "You had better
give me the chicken." "Why, what — when — how?"
stammered the landlady. "The chicken is worth
thousands of your pea." "I don't care for that;
it has got my pea inside it, and the only way I can
get my pea is to have that which holds the pea."
"What, give you my chicken for a single pea,
nonsense!" "Well, if you don't I'll summon you

All Change 15

before the justice." *'Ah, well, take the chicken
and my bad wishes with it."

So off went the man and sauntered along all
day, till that night he came to another inn, and
asked the landlord if he and his chicken could stop
there. He said, "No, no, we have no room for
you, but we can put your chicken in the stable if
you like." So the man said, "Yes," and went off
for the night. But there was a savage sow in the
stable, and during the night she ate up the poor
chicken. And when the man came the next morn-
ing he said to the landlord, "Please give me my
chicken." "I am awfully sorry, sir," said he,
"but my sow has eaten it up." The laziest man
said, "Then give me your sow." "What, a sow
for your chicken, nonsense; go away, my man."
"Then if you don't do that I'll have you before
the justice." "Ah, wtII, take the sow and my
curses with it," said the landlord.

And the man took the sow and followed it along
the road till he came to another inn, and said to
the landlady, "Have you room for me and my
sow?" "I have not," said the landlady, "but I
can put your sow up." So the sow was put in the
stable, and the man went off to lie in the barn for
the night. Now the sow went roaming about the
stable, and coming too near the hoofs of the mare,
was hit in the forehead and killed by the mare's
hoofs. So when the man came in the morning
and asked for his sow the landlady said, "I'm very

i6 Europa's Fairy Book

sorry, sir, but an accident has occurred ; my mare
has hit your sow in the skull and she is dead."
"What, the mare?" "No, your sow." "Then
give me the mare." " What, my mare for your sow,
nonsense." " Well, if you don't I'll take you before
the justice; you'll see if it's nonsense." So after
some time the landlady agreed to give the man her
mare in exchange for the dead sow.

Then the man followed on in the steps of the
mare till he came to another inn, and asked the
landlord if he could put him up for the night, him
and his mare. The landlord said, "All our beds
are full, but you can put the mare up in the stable
if you will." "Very well," said the man, and tied
the halter of the mare into the ring of the stable.
Next morning early the landlord's daughter said
to her father, "That poor mare has had nothing
to drink; I'll go and lead it to the river." "That
is none of your business," said the landlord; "let
the man do it himself." "Ah, but the poor thing
has had nothing to drink. I'll bring it back soon."
So the girl took the mare to the river brink and
let it drink the water; but, by chance, the mare
slipped into the stream, which was so strong that
it carried the mare away. And the young girl ran
back to her mother and said, "Oh mother, the
mare fell into the stream and it was carried quite
away. What shall we do? What shall we do?"

When the man came round that morning he
said, "Please give me my mare." "I'm very

All Change 17

sorry indeed, sir, but my daughter — that one there
— wanted to give the poor thing a drink and took
it down to the river and it fell in and was carried
away by the stream; I'm very sorry indeed."
*'Your sorrow won't pay my loss," said the man;
''the least you can do is to give me your daughter."
"What, my daughter to you because of the mare!"
"Well, if you don't I will take you before the
justice." Now the landlord didn't like going
before the justice.

So after much haggling he agreed to let his
daughter go with the man. And they went along,
and they went along, and they went along, till at
last they came to another inn which was kept by
the girl's aunt, though the man didn't know it.
So he went in and said, "Can you give me beds
for me and my girl here ? " So the landlady looked
at the girl who said nothing, and said, "Well, I
haven't got a bed for you but I have got a bed
for her; but perhaps she'll run away." "Oh, I
will manage that," said the man. And he went
and got a sack and put the girl in it and tied her
up ; and then he went off. As soon as he was gone
the girl's aunt opened the bag and said, "What
has happened, my dear?" And she told the whole
story. So the aunt took a big dog and put it in
the sack; and when the man came the next morn-
ing he said, "Where's my girl?" "There she is,
so far as I know." So he took the sack and put
it on his shoulder and went on his way for a time.

i8 Europa's Fairy Book

Then as the sun grew high he sat down under the
shade of a tree and thought he would speak to the
girl. And when he opened the sack the big dog
flew out at him, and he fell back, and that's the
last I heard of him.

The Seven-Headed Dragon

THE KING OF THE FISHES

ONCE upon a time there was a fisherman who
was very poor and felt poorer still because
he had no children. Now one day as he
was fishing he caught in his net the finest fish he
had ever seen, the scales all gold and eyes as bright
as diamonds; and just as he was going to take it
out of the net what do you think happened ? The
fish opened his jaws and said, ''I am the King of
the Fishes, and if you throw me back into the
water you will never want a catch." The fisherman
was so surprised that he let the fish slip into the
water, and he flapped his big tail and dived under
the waves. When he got home he told his wife

20 Europa's Fairy Book

all about it, and she said, "Oh, what a pity, I have
had such a longing to eat such a fish."

Well, next day the fisherman went again a-fishing
and, sure enough, he caught the same fish again,
and it said, "I am the King of the Fishes, if you
let me go you shall always have your nets full.'*
So the fisherman let him go again; and when he
went back to his home he told his wife that he had
done so. She began to cry and wail and said, "I
told you I wanted such a fish, and yet you let him
go; I am sure you do not love me." The fisherman
felt quite ashamed of himself and promised that if
he caught the King of the Fishes again he would
bring him home to his wife for her to cook. So
next day the fisherman went to the same place and
caught the same fish the third time. But when
the fish begged the fisherman to let him go he told
the King of the Fishes what his wife had said and
what he had promised her. "Well," said the King
of the Fishes, "if you must kill me you must, but
as you let me go twice I will do this for you. When
the wife cuts me up throw some of my bones under
the mare, and some of my bones under the bitch,
and the rest of my bones bury beneath the rose-
tree in the garden and then you will see what you
will see."

So the fisherman took the King of the Fishes
home to his wife, to whom he told what the fish
had said ; and when she cut up the fish for cooking
they threw some of the bones under the mare, and

The King of the Fishes 21

some under the bitch, and the rest they buried under
the rose-tree in the garden.

Now after a time the fisherman's wife gave him
two fine twin boys, whom they named George and
Albert, each with a star on his forehead just under
his hair, and at the same time the mare brought into
the world two fine colts, and the bitch two puppies.
And under the rose-tree grew up two rose bushes,
each of which bore every year only one rose, but
what a rose that was ! It lasted through the sum-
mer and it lasted through the winter and, most
curious of all, when George fell ill one of the roses
began to wilt, and if Albert had an illness the same
thing happened with the other rose.

Now when George and Albert grew up they heard
that a Seven-Headed Dragon was ravaging the
neighbouring kingdom, and that the king had
promised his daughter's hand to anyone that would
free the land from this scourge. They both wanted
to go and fight the dragon, but at last the twins
agreed that George go and Albert stop at home and
look after their father and mother, who had now
grown old. So George took his horse and his dog
and rode off where the dragon had last been seen.
And when he came to Middlegard, the capital of
the kingdom, he rode with his horse and his dog to
the chief inn of the town and asked the landlady
why everything looked so gloomy and why the
houses were draped in black. "Have you not
heard, sir," asked the landlady, "that the Dragon

22 Europa's Fairy Book

with the Seven Heads has been eating up a pure
maiden every month ? And now he demands that
the princess herself shall be delivered up to him
this day. That is why the town is draped in black
and we are all so gloomy." Thereupon George
took his horse and his dog and rode out to where
the princess was exposed to the coming of the
Dragon with Seven Heads. And when the prin-
cess saw George with his horse and his sword and
his dog she asked him, "Why come you here, sir.?
Soon the Dragon with Seven Heads, whom none
can withstand, will be here to claim me. Flee
before it is too late." But George said, "Prin-
cess, a man can die once, and I will willingly try
to save you from the dragon." Now as they were
talking a horrible roar rent the air and the Dragon
with the Seven Heads came towards the princess.
But when it saw George it called out, **Can'st
fight?" and George said, '*If I can't I can learn."
**ril learn thee," said the dragon. And there-
upon began a mighty combat between George and
the dragon ; and whenever the dragon came near
to George his dog would spring at one of his paws,
and when one of the heads reared back to deal with
it George's horse would spring to that side, and
George's sword would sweep that head away.
And so at last all the seven heads of the dragon
were shorn off by George's sword, and the prin-
cess was saved. And George opened the mouths of
Beven of the dragon's heads and cut out the tongues.

The King of the Fishes 23

and the princess gave him her handkerchief, and
he wrapt all the seven tongues in it and put them
away next his heart. But George was so tired
out by the fight that he laid down to sleep with
his head in the princess's lap, and she parted his
hair with her hands and saw the star on his brow.
Meanwhile the king's marshal, who was to have
married the princess if he would slay the dragon,
had been watching the fight from afar off; and
when he saw that the dragon had been slain and
that George was lying asleep after the fight, he
crept up behind the princess and, drawing his
dagger, said, '' Put his head on the ground or else
I will slay thee." And when she had done that
he bade her rise and come with him after he had
collected the seven heads of the dragon and strung
them on the leash of his whip. The princess would
have wakened George but the marshal threatened
to kill her if she did. "If I cannot wed thee he
shall not." And then he made her swear that she
would say that the marshal had slain the Dragon
with the Seven Heads. And when the princess
and the marshal came near the city the king and
his courtiers and all his people came out to meet
them with great rejoicing, and the king said to his
daughter, '*Who saved thee.^^" and she said, "this
man." "Then he shall marry thee," said the king.
"No, no, father," said the princess, "I am not old
enough to marry yet ; give me, at any rate, a year
and a day before the wedding takes place," for

24 Europa's Fairy Book

she hoped that George would come and save her
from the wicked marshal. The king himself, who
loved his daughter greatly, gave way at last and
promised that she should not be married for a
year and a day.

When George awoke and saw the dead body and
found the princess there no longer he did not know
what to make of it but thought that she did not
wish to marry a fisherman's son. So he mounted
his horse, and with his faithful hound went on
seeking further adventures through the world, and
did not come that way again till a year had passed,
when he rode into Middlegard again and alighted
at the same inn where he had stopped before.
**How now, hostess,'' he cried, ''last time I was
here the city was all in mourning but now every-
thing is agog with glee ; trumpets are blaring, lads
and lasses are dancing round the trees, and every
house has flags and banners flowing from its
windows. What is happening ? " " Know you not,
sir," said the hostess, **that our princess marries
to-morrow?" **Why, last time," he said, "she
was going to be devoured by the Dragon with
Seven Heads." '*Nay, but he was slain by the
king's marshal who weds the princess to-morrow as
a reward for his bravery, and every one that wishes
may join the wedding feast to-night in the king's
castle."

That night George went up to the king's castle
and took his place at the table not far off from

The King of the Fishes 27

where sat the king with the princess on one side
of him and the marshal on the other; and after the
banquet the king called upon the marshal once
more to tell how he had slain the Dragon with the
Seven Heads. And the marshal told a long tale
of how he had cut off the seven heads of the dragon,
and at the finish he ordered his squire to bring in
a platter on which were the seven heads. Then
up rose George and spoke to the king and said,
*'And pray, my lord, how does it happen that the
dragon's heads had no tongues?" And the king
said, ''That I know not; let us look and see."
And the jaws of the dragon's heads were opened,
and behold there were no tongues in them. Then
the king asked the marshal, "Know you aught
of this?" And the marshal had nothing to say.
And the princess looked up and saw her champion
again. Then George took out from his doublet
the seven tongues of the dragon, and it was found
that they fitted. "What is the meaning of this,
sir," said the king. Then George told the story of
how he had slain the dragon and fallen asleep in
the princess's lap and had awoke and found her
gone. And the princess, when asked by her
father, could not but tell of the treachery of the
marshal. "Away with him," cried out the king,
**let his head be taken off and his tongue be taken
out, and let his place be taken by this young
stranger."

So George and the princess were married and

28 Europa's Fairy Book

lived happily, till one night, looking out of the
window of the castle where they lived, George saw
in the distance another castle with windows all lit
up and shining like fire. And he asked the prin-
cess, his wife, what that castle might be. " Go not
near that, George," said the princess, *'for I have
always heard that none who enters that castle ever
comes out again." The next morning George
went with horse and hound to seek the castle;
and when he got near it he found at the gate an
old dame with but one eye; and he asked her to
open the gate, and she said she would but that it
was a custom of the castle that who ever entered
had to drink a glass of wine before doing so; and
she offered him a goblet full of wine; but when he
had drunk it he and his horse and his dog were
all turned into stone.

Just at the very moment when George was
turned to stone Albert, who had heard nothing of
him, saw George's rose in the garden close up and
turn the colour of marble; then he knew that some-
thing had happened to his brother, and he had out
his horse and his dog and rode off to find out what
had been George's fate. And he rode, and he rode,
till he came to Middlegard, and as soon as he
reached the gate the guard of the gate said, ** Your
highness, the princess has been in great anxiety
about you ; she will be so happy to know that you
have returned safe." Albert said nothing, but
followed the guard until he came to the princese'g

The King of the Fishes 29

chamber, and she ran to him and embraced him
and cried out, "Oh, George, I am so dehghted that
you have come back safe." *'Why should I not,"
said Albert. '' Because I feared that you had gone
to that castle with flaming windows, from which
nobody ever returns alive," said the princess.

Then Albert guessed what had happened to
George, and he soon made an excuse and went off
again to seek the castle which the princess had
pointed out from the window. When Albert got
there he found the same old dame sitting by the
gate, and asked if he might go in and see the castle.
She said again that none might enter the castle
unless they had taken a glass of wine and brought
out the goblet of wine once more. Albert was
about to drink it up when his faithful dog jumped
up and spilt the wine, which he began to lap up,
and as soon as he had drunk a little of it his body
turned to marble, just by the side of another stone
which looked exactly the same. Then Albert
guessed what had happened, and descending from
his horse he took out his sword and threatened the
old witch that he would kill her unless she restored
his brother to his proper shape. In fear and
trembling the old dame muttered something over
the four stones in front of the castle, and George
and his horse and his hound and Albert's dog
became alive again as they were before. Then
George and Albert rode back to the princess who,
when she saw them both so much alike, could not

30 Europa's Fairy Book

tell which was which; then she remembered and
went up to Albert and parted his hair on his fore-
head and saw there the star, and said, "This is
my George" ; but then George parted his own hair,
and she saw the same star there. At last Albert
told her all that had happened, and she knew her
own husband again. And soon after the king
died, and George ruled in his place, and Albert
married one of the neighbouring princesses.

Scissors

SCISSORS

ONCE upon a time, though it was not in my
time nor in your time nor in anybody else's
time, there Hved a cobbler named Tom
and his wife named Joan. And they Hved fairly
happily together, except that whatever Tom did
Joan did the opposite, and whatever Joan thought
Tom thought quite contrary-wise. When Tom
wanted beef for dinner Joan liked pork, and if
Joan wanted to have chicken Tom would like to
have duck. And so it went on all the time.

Now it happened that one day Joan was clean-
ing up the kitchen and, turning suddenly, she
knocked two or three pots and pans together and
broke them all. So Tom, who was working in the

32 Europa*s Fairy Book

front room, came and asked Joan, "What's all
this? What have you been doing?" Now Joan
had got the pair of scissors in her hand, and sooner
than tell him what had really happened she said,
"I cut these pots and pans into pieces with my
scissors."

**What," said Tom, "cut pottery with your
scissors, you nonsensical woman; you can't do it!"

"I tell you I did with my scissors!"

"You couldn't."

"I did."

"You couldn't."

"I did."

"Couldn't."

"Did."

"Couldn't."

"Did."

"Couldn't."

"Did."

At last Tom got so angry that he seized Joan
by the shoulders and shoved her out of the house
and said, " If you don't tell me how you broke those
pots and pans I'll throw you into the river." But
Joan kept on saying, "It was with the scissors";
and Tom got so enraged that at last he took her
to the bank of the river and said, "Now for the
last time, will you tell me the truth ; how did you
break those pots and pans?"

"With the scissors."

And with that he threw her into the river, and

Scissors

she sank once, and she sank twice, and just before
she was about to sink for the third time she put
her hand up into the air, out of the water, and made
a motion with her first and middle finger as if she
were moving the scissors. So Tom saw it was no
use to try to persuade her to do anything but
what she wanted. So he rushed up the stream and
met a neighbour who said, "'Tom, Tom, what are
you running for?"

"Oh, I want to find Joan; she fell into the river
just in front of our house, and I am afraid she is
going to be drowned."

"But," said the neighbour, "you're running
up stream."

"Well," said Tom, "Joan always went contrary-
wise whatever happened." And so he never found
her in time to save her.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

THERE was once a merchant that had three
daughters, and he loved them better than
himself. Now it happened that he had to
go a long journey to buy some goods, and when he
was just starting he said to them, "What shall I
bring you back, my dears?" And the eldest
daughter asked to have a necklace; and the second
daughter wished to have a gold chain; but the
youngest daughter said, '* Bring back yourself,
Papa, and that is what I want the most." ** Non-
sense, child," said her father, "you must say some-
thing that I may remember to bring back for
you. "So," she said, "then bring me back a rose,
father."

Well, the merchant went on his journey and did
his business and bought a pearl necklace for his
eldest daughter, and a gold chain for his second
daughter; but he knew it was no use getting a rose
for the youngest while he was so far away because
it would fade before he got home. So he made up
his mind he would get a rose for her the day he
got near his house.

When all his merchanting was done he rode off

Beauty and the Beast 3-5

home and forgot all about the rose till he was near
his house; then he suddenly remembered what he
had promised his youngest daughter, and looked
about to see if he could find a rose. Near where he
had stopped he saw a great garden, and getting
off his horse he wandered about in it till he found
a lovely rose-bush; and he plucked the most beau-
tiful rose he could see on it. At that moment be
heard a crash like thunder, and looking around he
saw a huge monster — two tusks in his mouth and
fiery eyes surrounded by bristles, and horns com-
ing out of its head and spreading over its back.

''Mortal,'' said the Beast, "who told thee thou
mightest pluck my roses?"

" Please, sir," said the merchant in fear and terror
for his life, " I promised my daughter to bring her
home a rose and forgot about it till the last moment,
and then I saw your beautiful garden and thought
you would not miss a single rose, or else I would
have asked your permission."

''Thieving is thieving," said the Beast, ''whether
it be a rose or a diamond; thy life is forfeit."

The merchant fell on his knees and begged for
his life for the sake of his three daughters who had
none but him to support them.

"Well, mortal, well," said the Beast, "I grant
thy life on one condition: Seven days from now
thou must bring this youngest daughter of thine,
for whose sake thou hast broken into my garden,
and leave her here in thy stead. Otherwise swear

36 Europa's Fairy Book

that thou wilt return and place thyself at my
disposal."

So the merchant swore, and taking his rose
mounted his horse and rode home.

As soon as he got into his house his daughters
came rushing round him, clapping their hands and
showing their joy in every way, and soon he gave
the necklace to his eldest daughter, the chain to
his second daughter, and then he gave the rose to
his youngest, and as he gave it he sighed. "Oh,
thank you, Father," they all cried. But the young-
est said, "Why did you sigh so deeply when you
gave me my rose.^"

''Later on I will tell you," said the merchant.

So for several days they lived happily together,
though the merchant wandered about gloomy and
sad, and nothing his daughters could do would
cheer him up till at last he took his youngest daugh-
ter aside and said to her, '' Bella, do you love your
father?"

"Of course I do. Father, of course I do."

"Well, now you have a chance of showing it";
and then he told her of all that had occurred with
the Beast when he got the rose for her. Bella was
very sad, as you can well think, and then she said,
"Oh, Father, it was all on account of me that you
fell into the power of this Beast; so I will go with
you to him; perhaps he will do me no harm; but
even if he does better harm to me than evil to my
dear father."

Beauty and the Beast 37

So next day the merchant took Bella behind him
on his horse, as was the custom in those days, and
rode oflf to the dwelHng of the Beast. And when
he got there and they ahghted from his horse the
doors of the house opened, and what do you think
they saw there! Nothing. So they went up the
steps and went through the hall, and went into
the dining-room and there they saw a table spread
with all manner of beautiful glasses and plates
and dishes and napery, with plenty to eat upon it.
So they waited and they waited, thinking that
the owner of the house would appear, till at last the
merchant said, "Let's sit down and see what will
happen then." And when they sat down invisible
hands passed them things to eat and to drink, and
they ate and drank to their heart's content. And
when they arose from the table it arose too and
disappeared through the door as if it were being
carried by invisible servants.

Suddenly there appeared before them the Beast
who said to the merchant, "Is this thy young-
est daughter?" And when he had said that it
was, he said, "Is she willing to stop here with
me?" And then he looked at Bella who said, in a
trembling voice, "Yes, sir."

"Well, no harm shall befall thee." With that
he led the merchant down to his horse and told
him he might come that day week to visit his
daughter. Then the Beast returned to Bella and
said to her, "This house with all that therein is is

38 Europa*s Fairy Book

thine; if thou desirest aught clap thine hands and
say the word and it shall be brought unto thee."
And with that he made a sort of bow and went
away.

So Bella lived on in the home with the Beast
and was waited on by invisible servants and had
whatever she liked to eat and to drink; but she
soon got tired of the solitude and, next day, when
the Beast came to her, though he looked so terrible,
she had been so well treated that she had lost a
great deal of her terror of him. So they spoke to-
gether about the garden and about the house and
about her father's business and about all manner
of things, so that Bella lost altogether her fear of
the Beast. Shortly afterwards her father came
to see her and found her quite happy, and he felt
much less dread of her fate at the hands of the
Beast. So it went on for many days, Bella seeing
and talking to the Beast every day, till she got
quite to like him, until one day the Beast did not
come at his usual time, just after the mid-day meal,
and Bella quite missed him. So she wandered
about the garden trying to find him, calling out
his name, but received no reply. At last she came
to the rose-bush from which her father had plucked
the rose, and there, under it, what do you think
she saw! There was the Beast lying huddled up
without any life or motion. Then Bella was sorry
indeed and remembered all the kindness that the
Beast had shown her; and she threw herself down

Beauty and the Beast 41

by it and said, "Oh, Beast, Beast, why did you
die ? I was getting to love you so much."

No sooner had she said this than the hide of the
Beast spHt in two and out came the most handsome
young prince who told her that he had been en-
chanted by a magician and that he could not re-
cover his natural form unless a maiden should, of
her own accord, declare that she loved him.

Thereupon the prince sent for the merchant and
his daughters, and he was married to Bella, and
they all lived happy together ever afterwards.

Reynard

REYNARD AND BRUIN

YOU must know that once upon a time
Reynard the Fox and Bruin the Bear
went into partnership and kept house
together. Would you Hke to know the reason?
Well, Reynard knew that Bruin had a beehive full
of honeycomb, and that was what he wanted;
but Bruin kept so close a guard upon his honey
that Master Reynard didn't know how to get
away from him and get hold of the honey. So one
day he said to Bruin, " Pardner, I have to go and
be gossip — that means god-father, you know — to
one of my old friends." "Why, certainly," said
Bruin. So off Reynard goes into the woods, and
after a time he crept back and uncovered the bee-
hive and had such a feast of honey. Then he went
back to Bruin, who asked him what name had been
given to the child. Reynard had forgotten all about
the christening and could only say, "Just-begun."
"What a funny name," said Master Bruin.
A little while after Reynard thought he would

4«

Reynard and Bruin 43

like another feast of honey. So he told Bruin that
he had to go to another christening ; and off he went.
And when he came back and Bruin asked him what
was the name given to the child Reynard said,
*' Half-eaten." The third time the same thing
occurred, and this time the name given by Rey-
nard to the child that didn't exist was ''All-gone,"
— you can guess why.

A short time afterwards Master Bruin thought he
would like to cat up some of his honey and asked
Reynard to come and join him in the feast. When
they got to the beehive Bruin was so surprised
to find that there was no honey left ; and he turned
round to Reynard and said, ''Just-begun, Half-
eaten, All-gone — so that is what you meant;
you have eaten my honey." "Why no," said
Reynard, "how could that be? I have never
stirred from your side except when I went a-gossip-
ing, and then I was far away from here. You must
have eaten the honey yourself, perhaps when you
were asleep ; at any rate we can easily tell ; let us lie
down here in the sunshine, and if either of us has
eaten the honey, the sun will soon sweat it out of
us." No sooner said than done, and the two lay
side by side in the sunshine. Soon Master Bruin
commenced to doze, and Mr. Reynard took some
honey from the hive and smeared it round Bruin's
snout; then he woke him up and said, "See, the
honey is oozing out of your snout; you must have
eaten it when you were asleep."

44 Europa's Fairy Book

Some time after this Reynard saw a man driving
a cart full of fish, which made his mouth water.
So he ran and he ran and he ran till he got far
away in front of the cart and lay down in the road
as still as if he were dead. When the man came
up to him and saw him lying there dead, as he
thought, he said to himself, "Why, that will make
a beautiful red fox scarf and muff for my wife Ann/'
And he got down and seized hold of Reynard and
threw him into the cart all along with the fish,
and then he went driving on as before. Reynard
began to throw the fish out till there were none left,
and then he jumped out himself without the man
noticing it, who drove up to his door and called
out, "Ann, Ann, see what I have brought you."
And when his wife came to the door she looked
into the cart and said, "Why, there is nothing
there."

Reynard in the meantime had brought all his
fish together and began eating some when up comes
Bruin and asked for a share. "No, no," said
Reynard, "we only share food when we have
shared work. I fished for these, you go and fish for
others."

"Why, how could you fish for these? the water
is all frozen over," said Bruin.

" I'll soon show you, " said Reynard, and brought
him down to the bank of the river, and pointed
to a hole in the ice and said, "I put my tail in
that, and the fish were so hungry I couldn't draw

Reynard and Bniin a

them up quick enough. Why do you not do tlic
same?"

So Bruin put his tail down and waited and waited
but no fish came. ^'Have patience, man," said
Reynard ; " as soon as one fish comes the rest will
follow."

"Ah, I feel a bite," said Bruin, as the water
commenced to freeze round his tail and caught it
in the ice.

Bitiin Gets a Beatmg

"Better wait till two or three have been caught
and then you can catch three at a time. I'll go
back and finish my lunch."

And with that Master Reynard trotted up to
the man's wife and said to her, "Ma'am, there's
a big black bear caught by the tail in the ice ; you
can do what you like with him. " So the woman
called her husband and they took big sticks and
went down to the river and commenced whacking
Bruin who, by this time, was fast in the ice. He
pulled and he pulled and he pulled, till at last he

Europa's Fairy Book

got away leaving three quarters of his tail in the
ice, and that is why bears have such short tails up
to the present day.

Meanwhile Mas-
ter Reynard was hav-
ing a great time in
the man's house, gol-
loping everything he
could find till the
man and his wife
came back and found
him with his nose in
the cream jug. As
soon as he heard
them come in he
tried to get away,
but not before the
man had seized hold
of the cream jug and
thrown it at him, just
catching him on the

Bruin Carries Reynard tail, and that is the

reason why the tips of foxes' tails are cream white
to this very day.

Well, Reynard crept home and found Bruin in
such a state, who commenced to grumble and com-
plain that it was all Reynard's fault that he had
lost his tail. So Reynard pointed to his own
tail and said, "Why, that's nothing; see my tail;
they hit me so hard upon the head my brains

Reynard and Bruin 47

fell out upon my tail. Oh, how bad I feel; won't
you carry me to my httle bed." So Bruin, who
was a good-hearted soul, took him upon his back
and rolled with him towards the house. And as he
went on Reynard kept saying, "The sick carries
the sound, the sick carries the sound."

** What's that you are saying.?" asked Bruin.

"Oh, I have no brains left, I do not know what
I am saying," said Reynard but kept on singing,
"The sick carries the sound, ha, ha, the sick carries
the sound."

Then Bruin knew that he had been done and
threw Reynard down upon the ground, and would
have eaten him up but that the fox slunk away
and rushed into a briar bush. Bruin followed him
closely into the briar bush and caught Reynard's
hind leg in his mouth. Then Reynard called out,
"That's right, you fool, bite the briar root, bite
the briar root."

Bruin thinking that he was biting the briar root,
let go Reynard's foot and snapped at the nearest
briar root. "That's right, now you've got me,

don't hurt me too much,"
called out Reynard, and slunk away.

"Don't hurt me too much,

don't hurt me too much."

When Bruin heard Reynard's voice dying away
in the distance he knew that he had been done

4^ Europa's Fairy Book

again, and that was the end of their partnership.
Some time after this a man was plowing in the
field with his two oxen, who were very lazy that
day. So the man called out at them, "Get a move
on or I'll give you to the Bear"; and when they
didn't quicken their pace he tried to frighten them
by calling out, **Bear, Bear, come and take these
lazy oxen." Sure enough, Bruin heard him and
came out of the woods and said, "Here I am, give
me the oxen, or else it'll be worse for you." The
man was in despair but said, "Yes, yes, of course
they are yours, but please let me finish my morn-
ing's plowing so I may finish this acre." Bruin
could not say "No" to that, and sat down licking
his chops and waiting for the oxen. The man
went on plowing, thinking what he should do,
when just at the corner of the field Reynard came
up to him and said, "If you will give me two geese,
I'll help you out of this fix and deliver the Bear
into your hands." The man agreed and he told
him what to do and went away into the woods.
Soon after, the Bear and the man heard a noise
like "Bow-wow, Bow-wow"; and the Bear came
to the man and said, "What's that?" "Oh, that
must be the lord's hounds out hunting for bears."
"Hide me, hide me," said Bruin, "and I will let
you off^ the oxen." Then Reynard called out from
the wood, "What's that black thing you've got
there?" And the Bear said, "Say it's the stump
of a tree. " So when the man had called this out

Reynard and Bruin 49

to the Fox, Reynard called out, "Put it in the cart;
fix it with the chain ; cut ofif the boughs, and drive
your axe into the stump." Then the Bear said
to the man, ''Pretend to do what he bids you;
heave me into the cart; bind me with the chain;
pretend to cut off the boughs, and drive the axe
into the stump." So the man Hfted Bruin into
the cart, bound him with the chain, then cut off
his Hmbs and buried the axe in his head.

Then Reynard came forward and asked for his
reward, and the man went back to his house to get
the pair of geese that he had promised.

"Wife, wife," he called out, as he neared the
house, "get me a pair of geese, which I have
promised the Fox for ridding me of the Bear."

"I can do better than that," said his wife Ann,
and brought him out a bag with two struggling
animals in it.

"Give these to Master Reynard," said she;
"they will be geese enough for him." So the man
took the bag and went down to the field and gave
the bag to Reynard; but when he opened it out
sprang two hounds, and he had great trouble in
running away from them to his den.

When he got to his den the Fox asked each of his
limbs, how they had helped him in his flight.
His nose said, "I smelt the hounds"; his eyes said,
"We looked for the shortest way"; his ears said,
"We listened for the breathing of the hounds";
and his legs said, "We ran away with you."

50 Europa's Fairy Book

Then he asked his tail what it had done, and it
said, "Why, I got caught in the bushes or made
your leg stumble; that is all I could do." So, as a
punishment, the Fox stuck his tail out of his den,
and the hounds saw it and caught hold of it, and
dragged the Fox out of his den by it and ate him all
up. So that was the end of Master Reynard, and
well he deserved it. Don't you think so?

THE DANCING WATER, THE SINGING
APPLE, AND THE SPEAKING BIRD

THERE was once an herb-gatherer who had
three daughters who earned their Hving
by spinning. One day their father died
and left them all alone in the world. Now the king
had a habit of going about the streets at night, and
listening at the doors to hear what the people said
of him. So one night he listened at the door of the
house where the three sisters lived, and heard them

52 Europa's Fairy Book

disputing. The oldest said : "If I were the wife of
the royal butler, I could give the whole court to
drink out of one glass of water, and there would be
some left. "

The second said: "If I were the wife of the
keeper of the royal wardrobe, with one piece of
cloth I could clothe all the attendants, and have
some left.

But the youngest daughter said: "Were I the
king's wife, I would bear him two children: a
son with a sun on his forehead, and a daughter
with a moon on her brow."

The king went back to his palace, and the next
morning sent for the sisters, and said to them:
"Do not be frightened, but tell me what you said
last night." The oldest told him what she had
said, and the king had a glass of water brought,
and commanded her to prove her words. She took
the glass, and gave all the attendants some water
to drink, and still there was some water left.

"Bravo!" cried the king, and summoned the
butler. "This is your husband. Now it is your
turn," said the king to the next sister, and com-
manded a piece of cloth to be brought, and the
young girl at once cut out garments for all the
attendants, and had some cloth left.

"Bravo!" cried the king again, and gave her
the keeper of the wardrobe for her husband.
"Now it is your turn," said the king to the
youngest.

The Dancing Water 53

"Please your Majesty, I said that if I were
the king's wife, I would bear him two children:
a son with a sun on his forehead, and a daughter
with a moon on her brow. "

"If that is true," replied the king, "you shall be
my queen; if not, you shall die," and straightway
he married her.

Very soon the two older sisters began to be
envious of the youngest. "Look," said they;
"she is going to be queen, and we must be ser-
vants!" and they began to hate her. A few
months before the queen's children were to be born,
the king declared war, and was obliged to go with
his army, but he left word that if the queen had
two children: a son with a sun on his forehead,
and a girl with a moon on her brow, the mother
was to be respected as queen ; if not, he was to be
informed of it, and would tell his servants what to
do. Then he departed for the war.

When the queen's children were bom, a son
with a sun on his forehead and a daughter with a
moon on her brow, as she had promised, the envious
sisters bribed the nurse to put little dogs in the
place of the queen's children, and sent word to
the king that his wife had given birth to two
puppies. He wrote back that she should be taken
care of for two weeks, and then put into a tread-
mill.

Meanwhile the nurse took the little babies, and
carried them out of doors, saying: "I will make

54 Europa's Fairy Book

the dogs eat them up," and she left them alone.
While they were thus exposed, three fairies passed
by and exclaimed: "Oh how beautiful these
children are!" and one of the fairies said: "What
present shall we make these children?" One
answered: "I will give them a deer to nurse them."
"And I a purse always full of money." "And
I," said the third fairy, "will give them a ring
which will change colour when any misfortune
happens to one of them."

The deer nursed and took care of the children
until they grew up. Then the fairy who had given
them the deer came and said: "Now that you have
grown up, how can you stay here any longer?"
" Very well, " said the brother, " I will go to the city
and hire a house." "Take care," said the deer,
"that you hire one opposite the royal palace."
So they went to the city and hired a palace as
directed, and furnished it as if they had been prin-
ces. When the aunts saw the brother and sister,
imagine their terror! "They are alive!" they
said. They could not be mistaken for there was
the sun on the forehead of the son, and the
moon on the girFs brow. They called the nurse
and said to her: "Nurse, what does this mean?
are our nephew and niece alive?" The nurse
watched at the window until she saw the brother go
out, and then she went over as if to make a visit
to the new house. She entered and said: "What
is the matter, my daughter; how do you do?

The Dancing Water 57

Are you perfectly happy? You lack nothing.
But do you know what is necessary to make you
really happy? It is the Dancing Water. If your
brother loves you, he will get it for you!'' She
remained a moment longer and then departed.

When the brother returned, his sister said to
him; "Ah! my brother, if you love me go and
get me the Dancing Water." He consented, and
next morning saddled a fine horse, and departed.
On his way he met a hermit, who asked him,
** Where are you going, cavalier?"

"I am going for the Dancing Water." "You
are going to your death, my son; but keep on
until you find a hermit older than I." He con-
tinued his journey until he met another hermit,
who asked him the same question, and gave
him the same direction. Finally he met a third
hermit, older than the other two, with a white
beard that came down to his feet, who gave him the
following directions: "You must climb yonder
mountain. On top of it you will find a great
plain and a house with a beautiful gate. Before
the gate you will see four giants with swords in their
hands. Take heed; do not make a mistake; for
if you do, that is the end of you ! When the giants
have their eyes closed, do not enter; when they
have their eyes open, enter. Then you will come
to a door. If you find it open, do not enter; if you
find it shut, push it open and enter. Then you
will find four lions. When they have their eyes

58 Europa's Fairy Book

shut, do not enter; when their eyes are open, enter,
and you will see the Dancing Water. " The youth
took leave of the hermit, and hastened on his way.

Meanwhile the sister kept looking at the ring
constantly, to see whether the stone in it changed
colour; but as it did not, she remained undisturbed.

A few days after leaving the hermit the youth
arrived at the top of the mountain, and saw the
palace with the four giants before it. They had
their eyes shut, and the door was open. "No,"
said the youth, "that won't do." And so he re-
mained on the lookout a while. When the giants
opened their eyes, and the door closed, he entered,
waited until the lions opened their eyes, and passed
in. There he found the Dancing Water, and filled
his bottles with it, and escaped when the lions
again opened their eyes.

The aunts, meanwhile, were delighted because
their nephew did not return ; but in a few days he
appeared and embraced his sister. Then they had
two golden basins made, and put into them the
Dancing Water, which leaped from one basin to the
other. When the aunts saw it they exclaimed:
"Ah! how did he manage to get that water?"
and called the nurse, who again waited until
the sister was alone, and then visited her. "You
see," said she, "how beautiful the Dancing Water
is! But do you know what you want now.? The
Singing Apple." Then she departed. When the
brother who had brought the Dancing Water

The Singing Apple 59

returned, his sister said to him: *'If you love me
you must get for me the Singing Apple." "Yes,
my sister, I will go and get it."

Next morning he mounted his horse, and set out.
After a time he met the first hermit, who sent him
to an older one. He asked the youth where he was
going, and said: "It is a difficult task to get the
Singing Apple, but hear what you must do: Climb
the mountain ; beware of the giants, the door, and
the lions; then you will find a little door and a pair
of shears in it. If the shears are open, enter; if
closed, do not risk it." The youth continued his
way, found the palace, entered, and found every-
thing favourable. When he saw the shears open,
he went in a room and saw a wonderful tree, on top
of which was an apple. He climbed up and tried
to pick the apple, but the top of the tree swayed
now this way, now that. He waited until it was
still a moment, seized the branch, and picked the
apple. He succeeded in getting safely out of the
palace, mounted his horse, and rode home, and all
the time he was carrying the apple it kept on
singing.

The aunts were again delighted because their
nephew was so long absent; but when they saw
him return, they felt as though the house had fallen
on them. Again they summoned the nurse, and
again she visited the young girl, and said: "See
how beautiful they are, the Dancing Water and the
Singing Apple! But should you see the Speaking

6o Europa's Fairy Book

Bird, there would be nothing left for you to see. "
**Very well," said the young girl; "we will see
whether my brother will get it for me. "

When her brother came she asked him for the
Speaking Bird, and he promised to get it for her.
He met, as usual on his journey, the first hermit,
who sent him to the second, who sent him on to a
third one, who said to him: "Climb the mountain
and enter the palace. You will find many statues.
Then you will come to a garden, in the midst of
which is a fountain, and on the basin is the Speak-
ing Bird. If it should say anything to you, do not
answer. Pick a feather from the bird's wing, dip
it into a jar you will find there, and anoint all the
statues. Keep your eyes open, and all will go
well."

The youth already knew well the way, and soon
was in the palace. He found the garden and the
bird, which, as soon as it saw him, exclaimed:
"What is the matter, noble sir; have you come
for me.f* You have missed it. Your aunts have
sent you to your death, and you must remain here.
Your mother has been sent to the tread-mill.'*
"My mother in the tread-mill?" cried the youth,
and scarcely were the words out of his mouth when
he became a statue like all the others.

Now when her brother did not come back the
third time the sister looked at her ring, and it had
become black, and she knew that something had
befallen him. Poor child! not having anything

The Speaking Bird 6i

else to do, she dressed herself like a page and set
out.

Like her brother, she met the three hermits, and
received their instructions. The third concluded
thus: "Beware, for if you answer when the bird
speaks you will lose your life, but if you speak
not, it will come to you; take one of its feathers
and dip it in the jar you will see there and anoint
your brother's nostril with it. '' She continued her
way, followed exactly the hermit's directions, and
reached the garden in safety. When the bird saw
her it exclaimed: **Ah! you here, too? Now you
will meet the same fate as your brother. Do you
see him lying there? Your father is at the war.
Your mother is in the tread-mill. Your aunts are
rejoicing. "

But the sister made no reply, but let the bird
sing on. When it had nothing more to say it
flew down, and the young girl caught it, pulled
a feather from its wing, dipped it into the jar,
and anointed her brother's nostrils, and he at
once came to life again. Then she did the same
with all the other statues, with the lions and the
giants, until all became alive again. Then she
departed with her brother, and all the noblemen,
princes, barons, and kings' sons rejoiced greatly.
Now when they had all come to life again the pal-
ace disappeared, and the hermits disappeared,
for they were the three fairies.

The day after the brother and sister reached the

62 Europa's Fairy Book

city where they Hved, they summoned a goldsmith,
and had him make a gold chain, and fasten the bird
with it. The next time the aunts looked out they
saw in the window of the palace opposite the Danc-
ing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking
Bird. ''Well," said they, ''the real trouble is
coming now!"

The bird directed the brother and sister to pro-
cure a carriage finer than the king's, with twenty-
four attendants, and to have the service of their
palace, cooks, and servants, more numerous and
better than the king s. All of which the brother
and sister did at once. And when the aunts saw
these things they were ready to die of rage.

At last the king returned from the war, and his
subjects told him all the news of the kingdom, and
the thing they talked about the least was his wife
and children. One day the king looked out of the
window and saw the palace opposite furnished in
a magnificent manner. "Who lives there?" he
asked, but no one could answer him. He looked
again and saw the brother and sister, the former
with the sun on his forehead, and the latter with
the moon on her brow. "Gracious! if I did not
know that my wife had given birth to puppies, I
should say that those were my children, " exclaimed
the king. Another day he stood by the window
and enjoyed the Dancing Water and the Singing
Apple, but the bird was silent.

After the king had heard all the music, the bird

The Speaking Bird 63

said: '* What does your Majesty think of it?" The
king was astonished at hearing the Speaking Bird,
and answered: *'What should I think? It is mar-
vellous."

"There is something more marvellous," said
the bird; "just wait."

Then the bird told his mistress to call her brother,
and said: "There is the king; let us invite him to
dinner on Sunday. Shall we not?"

"Yes, yes," they said. So the king was invited
and accepted, and on Sunday the bird had a grand
dinner prepared and the king came. When he
saw the young people near, he clapped his hands
and said: "They must be my children."

He went over the palace and was astonished at its
richness. Then they went to dinner, and while
they were eating the king said: "Bird, every one
is talking; you alone are silent."

"Ah! your Majesty, I am ill; but next Sunday I
shall be well and able to talk, and will come and
dine at your palace with this lady and this gentle-
man."

The next Sunday the bird directed his mistress
and her brother to put on their finest clothes;
so they dressed in royal style and took the bird with
them. The king showed them through his palace
and treated them with the greatest ceremony;
the aunts were nearly dead with fear. When they
had seated themselves at the table, the king said:
"Come, bird, you promised me you would speak;

Europa's Fairy Book

have you nothing to say?" Then the bird began
and related all that had happened from the time
the king had listened at the door until his poor wife
had been sent to the tread-mill; then the bird

The King Begs Pardon

added : "These are your children, and your wife was
sent to the tread-mill, and is dying. "

When the king heard all this, he hastened to
embrace his children, and then went to find his
poor wife, who was reduced to skin and bones and
was at the point of death. He knelt before her
and begged her pardon, and then summoned her
sisters and the nurse, and when they were in his
presence he said to the bird : " Bird, you who have

The Speaking Bird 65

told me everything, now pronounce their sentence/'
Then the bird sentenced the nurse to be thrown
out of the window, and the sisters to be cast into a
cauldron of boiling oil. This was at once done.
The king was never tired of embracing his wife.
Then the bird departed and the king and his wife
and children lived together in peace.

The Girl and the Frog

THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS

THERE was once a man who had a son named
Jack, who was very simple in mind and
backward in his thought. So his father sent
him away to school so that he might learn some-
thing; and after a year he came back from school.
"Well, Jack," said his father, "what have you
learnt at school?"

And Jack said, "I know what dogs mean when
they bark."

The Language of Animals 67

"That's not much, " said his father. '' You must
go to school again/'

So he sent him to school for another year, and
when he came back he asked him what he had
learnt.

"Well, father," said the boy, '*when frogs croak
I know what they mean."

"You must learn more than that," said the
father, and sent him once more to school.

And when he returned, after another year, he
asked him once more what he had learnt.

"I know all the birds say when they twitter and
chirp, caw and coo, gobble and cluck."

"Well I must say," said the father, "that does
not seem much for three years' schooling. But let
us see if you have learnt your lessons properly.
What does that bird say just above our heads in the
tree there.?"

Jack listened for some time but did not say any-
thing.

"Well, Jack, what is it.^^" asked his father.

"I don't like to say, father."

"I don't believe you know or else you would say.
Whatever it is I shallnot mind."

Then the boy said, "The bird kept on saying
as clear as could be, 'the time is not so far away
when Jack's father will offer him water on
bended knees for him to wash his hands; and his
mother shall offer him a towel to wipe them
with.'"

68 Europa's Fairy Book

Thereupon the father grew very angry at Jack
and his love for him changed to hatred, and one
day he spoke to a robber and promised him much
money if he would take Jack away into the forest
and kill him there and bring back his heart to show
that he had done what he had promised. But
instead of doing this the robber told Jack all about
it and advised him to flee away, while the robber
took back to Jack's father the heart of a deer
saying that it was Jack's. Then Jack travelled on
and on till one night he stopped at a castle on the
way; and while they were all supping together in the
castle hall the dogs in the court-yard began bark-
ing and baying. And Jack went up to the lord of
the castle and said, "There will be an attack upon
the castle to-night. "

"How do you know that.?" asked the lord.

"The dogs say so," said Jack.

At that the lord and his men laughed, but never-
the-less put an extra guard around the castle that
night, and, sure enough, the attack was made,
which was easily beaten off because the men were
prepared. So the lord gave Jack a great reward
for warning him, and he went on his way with a
fellow traveller who had heard him warn the lord.

Soon afterwards they arrived at another castle
in which the lord's daughter was lying sick unto
death; and a great reward had been offered to him
that should cure her. Now Jack had been listen-
ing to the frogs as they were croaking in the moat

The Language of Animals 69

which surrounded the castle. So Jack went to the
lord of the castle and said, "I know what ails your
daughter."

"What is it," asked the lord.

"She has dropped the holy wafer from her
mouth and it has been swallowed by one of the
frogs in the moat. "

"How do you know that?" said the lord.

"I heard the frogs say so."

At first the lord would not believe it; but in order
to save his daughter's life he got Jack to point out
the frog who was boasting of what he had swal-
lowed, and, catching it, found what Jack had said
was true. The frog was caught and killed, the wafer
got back, and the girl recovered. So the lord gave
Jack the reward which was promised, and he went
on further with his companion and with another
guest of the castle who had heard what Jack had
said and done.

So Jack, with his two companions, travelled on
towards Rome, the city of cities where dwelt the
Pope, in those days the head of all Christendom.
And as they were resting by the road-side Jack
said to his companions, "Who would have thought
it ? One of us is going to be the Pope of Rome. "

And his comrades asked him how he knew.

And he said, "The birds above in the tree have
said so."

And his comrades at first laughed at him, but
then remembered that what he had said before of

Europa's Fairy Book

the barking of dogs and of the croaking of frogs
had turned out to be true.

Now when they arrived at Rome they found
that the Pope had just died and that they were

mfl\k A

—

•

The Pope is Elected

about to select his successor. And it was decided
that all the people should pass under an arch
whereon was a bell and two doves, and he upon
whose shoulders the doves should alight, and for
whom the bell should ring as he passed under the
arch was to be the next Pope. And when Jack
and his companions came near the arch they all
remembered his prophecy and wondered which of
the three should receive the signs. And his first
comrade passed under the arch and nothing hap-
pened, and then the second and nothing happened,

The Language of Animals 71

but when Jack went through the doves descended
and ahghted upon his shoulder and the bell began
to toll. So Jack was made Pope of all Christen-
dom, and he took the name of Pope Sylvester.

After a while the new Pope went upon his travels
and came to the town where his father dwelt.
And there was a great banquet held, to which
Jack's father and mother were invited at his re-
quest. And when they came he ordered his ser-
vants to give to his father the basin of w^ater, and
to his mother the towel, wherewith the Pope would
wash his hands after dinner. Now this was, in those
days, a great honour, and people wondered why
Jack's father and mother should be so honoured.
But after Jack's father had offered him the basin of
water, and his mother the towel. Jack said to
them, **Do you not know me, mother? Do you
not know me, father?" and made himself known
to them and reminded his father of what the bird
had said. So he forgave his father and took him
and his mother to live with him ever afterwards.

THE THREE SOLDIERS

ONCE upon a time three soldiers returned
from the wars; one was a sergeant, one
was a corporal, and the third was a simple
private. One night they were caught in a forest
and made a fire up to sleep by; and the sergeant
had to do sentry-go. While he was walking up
and down an old woman, bent double, came up to
him and said :

"Please, sir, may I warm myself by your fire.'*'*

"Why, certainly, mother, you are welcome to
all the warmth you can get."

So the old woman sat by the fire for a time, and
when she had got thoroughly warmed she said to
the sergeant :

"Thank you, soldier; here is something for
your trouble." And she handed him a purse,
which seemed to have nothing in it.

"Oh, thank you, marm," said the sergeant,
"but I wouldn't deprive you of it, especially as
there is nothing in it."

"That may be so now," said the old woman,

"but take it in your hand and turn it upside-

The Three Soldiers 75

down, and while you hold it like that gold pieces
will come pouring out of it."

He took it, and, sure enough, whenever he held
it up out came the gold pieces. So he thanked
her very much, and off she went.

Next night the corporal had to play sentry, and
the old woman came up to him and asked to sit
by the side of the fire.

*' Certainly, marm," said he, "and welcome you
are. I have known what it is to shiver in my
bones."

So the old woman sat by the fire for a time, and
when she was leaving gave the corporal a table-
cloth.

Said he, '* Thank you, marm, kindly, but we
soldiers rarely use tablecloths when we are eating
our vittles."

''Yes, but this gives you vittles to eat," said the
old woman. "Whenever you put this over a table
or on the ground and call out 'Be covered!' the
finest dinner you could eat at once comes upon it."

"If that is so," said the corporal, "FIl take it
and thank you kindly." And with that the old
woman departed, and the corporal woke up his
comrades and called out: "Tablecloth be covered!"
And, sure enough, the finest dinner you could
imagine appeared upon the cloth.

Next night the private marched up and down
doing sentry-go, when the old woman appeared
again and asked to sit by the fire.

76 Europa's Fairy Book

'* Surely," said the private, ''you're as welcome
as my own mother would be."

And after she had sat some time by the fire she
got up and said :

"Thank you kindly, sir; I hope this will pay you
for your trouble." And she gave him a whistle.

"And what's this for?" said the private. "I
can't play on the whistle."

"But you can blow it," said she, "and whenever
you blow it out will come a regiment of armed men
that will do whatever you tell them."

And with that the old woman departed, and
they never saw her more.

So the three soldiers travelled on till they came
to a city where there was a princess, who was so
proud of her card playing that she had agreed to
marry any one who could beat her at cards. Now
the sergeant was also very proud of his card playing,
and he thought he would try his luck with the
princess. So when he went up to the palace he
offered to play a game with her, but she said to
him:

"What are your stakes.? If I lose I have to
marry you. But if you lose what do you lose?"

So the sergeant said: "I'll stake my purse."

"Why, what's a purse with nothing in it!"
said the princess.

"There may be nothing in it now," said the
sergeant, "but see here," and he turned the purse
upside-down and put his hand under it, and it

The Three Soldiers 77

kept on dropping gold pieces into his hand as long
as he held it upside-down.

So the princess agreed to play for the purse.
But she had arranged a mirror at the back of his
head in which she could see all his cards. And so
she won easily, and he had to give up the purse.

But this princess was so charming that the ser-
geant had fallen in love with her, and when he
went back to his comrades he asked the corporal
to lend him his tablecloth. And he went back to
the princess and said to her:

"Will you play me for this tablecloth.?"

And she said : *' It may be a very beautiful table-
cloth but it isn't quite equal to me."

Then he laid it on a table and said, '"Cloth,
cover thyself." And there was a most delicious
dinner spread upon it.

But, as the princess knew she would be able to
beat him, she agreed to play him for the table-
cloth, and, sure enough, by means of the mirror,
she won the tablecloth from him.

The same thing happened when he borrowed
the whistle from the private and tried his luck
with the princess again. But this time he watched
what she was doing, and knew that she had cheated
him though he dared not say so. He lost again
and went back to his comrades and asked them
to forgive him, but he could not help it as the
princess had cheated him. So his friends forgave
him, and they all went their various ways.

78 Europa's Fairy Book

Now the sergeant wandered along, and wandered
along, and wandered along, till he came to the
bank of a stream on which there grew fig trees,
white and black. And he gathered some of these
figs from the different trees, and sat down by the
bank to eat them. And he ate a black fig, and
then, feeling thirsty, went down to the stream to
drink some of the water, and as he looked in he
found that he had two horns on the side of his head
just like a goat, instead of two ears. He didn't
know what to do; but as he was still hungry he ate
one of the white figs; and when he went to drink
again he found the horns had disappeared. So
then he knew that the black figs brought the horns
and the white figs took them away. So he gathered
some more of them and went back to the palace
of the princess, and sent her up some of the black
figs as a present from an admirer.

And after a while there was a rumour spread
around the city that the princess had horns in her
head, and would give anything to any one who
could remove them.

So the sergeant went up to the palace and pre-
sented himself before the princess and said to her:

"I can remove your horns, but I want my purse,
and my tablecloth, and my whistle back."

Then she ordered them to be brought and pro-
mised to give them back to him as soon as the horns
were removed.

So he gave her a white fig, and as soon as she

The Three Soldiers 79

had eaten it the horns disappeared; and he took
up the purse, the tablecloth, and the whistle.
Then he said to her:

The Princess Finds Horns on her Head

"Now, will you marry me?"
"No," she replied, "why should I?"
"Because you didn't win these fairly."
"That may be, or that may not be, but I see
no reason why I should marry you."

Thereupon he blew his whistle, and the palace

So Europa's Fairy Book

was filled with a regiment of soldiers. And the
sergeant said :

"If you do not marry me these men shall seize
your father and I will seize his throne."

So the princess married him, and he sent for the
corporal and the private and made them rich and
prosperous, and they all lived fairly happily
together.

The Unicorn

A DOZEN AT A BLOW

A LITTLE tailor was sitting cross-legged at
his bench and was stitching away as busy-
as could be when a woman came up the
street calling out: "Home-made jam, home-made
jam!"

So the tailor called out to her: "Come here, my
good woman, and give me a quarter of a pound."
And when she had poured it out for him he
spread it on some bread and butter and laid it aside
for his lunch. But, in the summer-time, the flies
commenced to collect around the bread and jam.

When the tailor noticed this, he raised his
leather strap and brought it down upon the crowd

6 8l

82 Europa's Fairy Book

of flies and killed twelve of them straightway. He
was mighty proud of that. So he made himself
a shoulder-sash, on which he stitched the letters:
A Dozen at One Blow.

When he looked down upon this he thought to
himself: "A man who could do such things ought
not to stay at home ; he ought to go out to conquer
the world."

So he put into his wallet the cream cheese that
he had bought that day and a favourite blackbird
that used to hop about his shop, and went out to
seek his fortune.

He hadn't gone far when he met a giant, and
went up to him and said: ''Well, comrade, how
goes it with you ^ "

"Comrade," sneered the giant, *'a pretty com-
rade you would make for me."

''Look at this," said the tailor pointing to his
sash.

And when the giant read, "A Dozen at a Blow,'*
he thought to himself: "This little fellow is no
fool of a fighter if what he says is true. But let's
test him."

So the giant said to the tailor: "If what youVe
got there is true, we may well be comrades. But
let's see if you can do what I can do."

And he bent down in the road and took up a
large stone and pressed it with his hand till it all
crushed up and water commenced to pour out
from it.

A Dozen at a Blow 83

"Can you do that?" said the giant.

The tailor also bent down in the road, but took
out from his wallet the piece of cheese and pre-
tended to pick it up.

When he took it in his hand he pressed and
pressed till the cream poured forth from it.

The giant said: "Well, you can do that fairly
well. Let's see if you can throw."

He took another stone and threw it till it went
right across the river by which they were standing.

So the little tailor took his blackbird in his
hand and pretended to throw it, and of course
when it felt itself in the air it flew away and dis-
appeared.

The giant said: "That wasn't a bad throw.
You may as well come home and stop with us
giants, and we'll do great things together."

As they went along the giant said: "We want
some twigs for our night fires. You may as well
help me carry some home." And he pointed to a
tree that had fallen by the wayside and said:
"Help me carry that, will you?"

So the tailor said, "Why certainly," and went
to the top of the tree, and said: "I'll carry these
branches which are the heavier; you carry the
trunk which has no branches."

And when the giant got the trunk on his shoul-
ders the tailor seated himself on one of the branches
and let the giant carry him along.

After a time the giant got tired and said: "Ho

84 Europa's Fairy Book

there, wait a minute, Vm going to drop the tree
and rest awhile."

So the tailor jumped down and caught the tree
around the branches again and said: "Well, you
are easily tired."

At last they got to the giant's castle and there the
giant spoke to his brothers and told them what a
brave and powerful fellow this little tailor was.
They spoke together and determined to get rid of
him lest he might do them some harm. But they
determined to kill him in the night because he was
so strong and might kill twelve of them at a blow.

But the tailor saw them whispering together,
and guessing that something was wrong went out
into the yard and got a big bladder which he filled
with blood and put it in the bed which the giants
pointed out to him.

Then he crept under it, and during the night
they brought their big clubs and hit the bed over
and over again till the blood spurted out onto their
faces.

Then they thought the tailor was dead and went
back to sleep.

But in the morning there was the tailor as large
as life. And they were so surprised to see him
that they asked him if he had not felt anything
during the night.

"Oh, I don't know, there seemed to be plenty
of fleas in that bed," said the tailor. "I do not
think I would care to sleep there again." And

A Dozen at a Blow 85

with that he took his leave of the giants and went
on his way.

After a time he came to the King's court and
fell asleep under a tree. And some of the courtiers
passing by saw written upon his sash, "A Dozen at
One Blow,"

They went and told the King who said: "Why,
he's just the man for us; he will be able to destroy
the wild boar and the unicorn that are ravaging
our kingdom. Bring him to us."

So they woke up the little tailor and brought
him to the King, who said to him: "There is a
wild boar ravaging our kingdom. You are so
powerful that you will easily be able to capture
it."

"What shall I get if I do.?" asked the Httle tailor.

"Well, I have promised to give my daughter's
hand and half the kingdom to the man who can
do it, and other things."

"What other things.?" said the little tailor.

"Oh, it will be time to learn that when you have
caught the boar."

Then the little tailor went out to the wood where
the boar was last seen, and when he came near him
he ran away, and ran away, and ran away, till at
last he came to a little chapel in the wood into
which he ran, and the boar at his heels. He
climbed up to a high window and got outside the
chapel, and then rushed around to the door and
closed and locked it.

S6 Europa's Fairy Book

Then he went back to the King and said to him:
"I have your wild boar for you in the chapel in
the woods. Send some of your men to kill him,
or do what you like with him."

"How did you manage to get him there?" said
the King.

"Oh, I caught him by the bristles and threw him
in there as I thought you wanted to have him safe
and sound. What's the next thing I must do.?"

"Well," said the King, "there's a unicorn in
this country killing everyone that he meets. I
do not want him slain; I want him caught and
brought to me."

So the little tailor said, "Give me a rope and a
hatchet and I will see what I can do."

So he went with the rope and hatchet to the
wood, where the unicorn had been seen. And
when he came towards it he dodged it, and he
dodged it, till at last he dodged behind a big tree,
till the unicorn, in trying to pierce, ran his horn
into the tree where it stuck fast.

Then the little tailor came forth and tied the
rope around the unicorn's neck, and dug out the
horn with his hatchet, and dragged the unicorn
to the King.

"What's the next thing.?" said the little tailor.

"Well, there is only one thing more. There are
two giants who are destroying everybody they
meet. Get rid of them, and my daughter and the
half of my kingdom shall be yours."

A Dozen at a Blow 87

Then the Httle tailor went to seek the giants
and found them sleeping under some trees in the
woods. He filled his box with stones, climbed up
a tree overlooking the giants, and when he had
hidden himself in the branches he threw a stone
at the chest of one of the giants who woke up and
said to his brother giant, "What are you doing
there?"

And the other giant woke up and said, "I have
done nothing."

"Well, don't do it again," said the other giant,
and laid down to sleep again.

Then the tailor threw a stone at the other giant
and hit him a whack on the chin. That giant rose
up and said to his fellow giant, "What do you do
that for.?"

"Do what.?"

"Hit me on the chin."

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I didn't."

"You did."

"Well, take that for not doing it."

And with that the other giant hit him a rousing
blow on the head. With that they commenced
fighting and tore up the trees and hit one another
till at last one of them was killed, and the other
one was so badly injured that the tailor had no
diflSculty in killing him with his hatchet.

Then he went back to the King and said: "I

88 Europa's Fairy Book

have got rid of your giants for you; send your
men and bury them in the forest. They tore
up the trees and tried to kill me with them
but I was too much for them. Now for the
Princess."

Well, the King had nothing more to say, and
gave him his daughter in marriage and half the
kingdom to rule.

But shortly after they were married the Princess
heard the tailor saying in his sleep : " Fix that but-
ton better; baste that side gore; don't drop your
stitches like that."

And then she knew she had married a tailor.
And she went to her father weeping bitterly and
complained.

"Well, my dear," he said, "I promised, and he
certainly showed himself a great hero. But I
will try and get rid of him for you. To-night I
will send into your bedroom a number of soldiers
that shall slay him even if he can kill a dozen at
a blow."

So that night the little tailor noticed there was
something wrong and heard the soldiers moving
about near the bedroom. So he pretended to fall
asleep and called out in his sleep: "I have killed
a dozen at a blow; I have slain two giants; I
have caught a wild boar by his bristles, and
captured a unicorn alive. Show me the man
that I need fear."

And when the soldiers heard that they said to

A Dozen at a Blow 89

the Princess that the job was too much for them,
and went away.

And the Princess thought better of it, and was
proud of her Httle hero, and they Hved happily
ever afterwards.

The Earl of Cattenborough will be Pleased to Partake of a Potato

THE EARL OF CATTENBOROUGH

ONCE upon a time there was a miller who
had three sons, Charles, Sam, and John.
And every night when the servant went
to bed he used to call out:

** Good-night, Missus; good-night. Master;
Good-night, Charles, Sam, John."
Now after a time the miller's wife died, and, soon
after, the miller, leaving only the mill, the donkey,

and the cat. And Charles, as the eldest, took the

The Earl of Cattenborough 91

mill, and Sam took the donkey and went off with
it, and John was left with only the cat.

Now how do you think the cat used to help John
to live? She used to take a bag with a string
around the top and place it with some cheese in the
bushes, and when a hare or a partridge would come
and try to get the piece of cheese — snap! Miss
Puss would draw the string and there was the hare
or partridge for Master Jack to eat. One day
two hares happened to rush into the bag at the
same time. So the cat, after giving one to Jack,
took the other and went with it to the King's
palace. And when she came outside the palace
gate she cried out, "Miaou."

The sentry at the gate came to see what was
the matter. Miss Puss gave him the hare with a
bow and said: "Give this to the King with the
compliments of the Earl of Cattenborough."

The King liked jugged hare very much and was
glad to get such a fine present.

Shortly after this Miss Puss found a gold coin
rolling in the dirt. And she went up to the palace
and asked the sentry if he would lend her a corn
measure.

The sentry asked who wanted it. And Puss
said: "My Master, the Earl of Cattenborough."

So the sentry gave her the corn measure. And
a little while afterwards she took it back with the
gold coin, which she had found, fixed in a crack in
the corn measure.

92 Europa's Fairy Book

So the King was told that the Earl of Catten-
borough measured his gold in a corn measure. When
the King heard this he told the sentry that if such
a thing happened again he was to deliver a message
asking the Earl to come and stop at the palace.

Some time after the cat caught two partridges,
and took one of them to the palace. And when
she called out, '* Miaou,'* and presented it to the
sentry, in the name of the Earl of Cattenborough,
the sentry told her that the King wished to see
the Earl at his palace.

So Puss went back to Jack and said to him:
**The King desires to see the Earl of Catten-
borough at his palace."

"What is that to do with meV said Jack.

*'0h, you can be the Earl of Cattenborough if
you like. Til help you."

"But I have no clothes, and they'll soon find
out what I am when I talk."

"As for that," said Miss Puss, "I'll get you
proper clothes if you do what I tell you ; and when
you come to the palace I will see that you do not
make any mistakes."

So next day she told Jack to take off his clothes
and hide them under a big stone and dip himself
into the river. And while he was doing this she
went up to the palace gate and said: "Miaou,
miaou, miaou!"

And when the sentry came to the gate she said:
"My Master, the Earl of Cattenborough, has been

The Earl of Cattenborough 93

robbed of all he possessed, even of his clothes, and
he is hiding in the bramble bush by the side of the
river. What is to be done? What is to be done?"

The sentry went and told the King. And the
King gave orders that a suitable suit of clothes,
worthy of an Earl, should be sent to Master Jack,
who soon put them on and went to the King's
palace accompanied by Puss. When they got
there they were introduced into the chamber of
the King, who thanked Jack for his kind presents.

Miss Puss stood forward and said: "My Master,
the Earl of Cattenborough, desires to state to your
Majesty that there is no need of any thanks for
such trifles."

The King thought it was very grand of Jack not
to speak directly to him, and summoned his lord
chamberlain, and from that time onward only
spoke through him. Thus, when they sat down
to dinner with the Queen and the Princess, the
King would say to his chamberlain, "Will the Earl
of Cattenborough take a potato?"

Whereupon Miss Puss would bow and say:
"The Earl of Cattenborough thanks his Majesty
and would be glad to partake of a potato."

The King was so much struck by Jack's riches
and grandeur, and the Princess was so pleased
with his good looks and fine dress that it was
determined that he should marry the Princess.

But the King thought he would try and see if
he were really so nobly born and bred as he seemed.

94 Europa's Fairy Book

So he told his servants to put a mean truckle bed
in the room in which Jack was to sleep, knowing
that no noble would put up with such a thing.

When Miss Puss saw this bed she at once guessed
what was up. And when Jack began to undress to
get into bed, she made him stop, and called the at-
tendants to say that he could not sleep in such a bed.

So they took him into another bedroom, where
there was a fine four-poster with a dais, and every-
thing worthy of a noble to sleep upon. Then the
King became sure that Jack was a real noble, and
married him soon to his daughter the Princess.

After the wedding feast was over the King told
Jack that he and the Queen and the Princess would
come with him to his castle of Cattenborough,
and Jack did not know what to do. But Miss
Puss told him it would be all right if he only didn't
speak much while on the journey. And that
suited Jack very well.

So they all set out in a carriage with four horses,
and with the King's life-guards riding around it.
But Miss Puss ran on in front of the carriage, and
when she came to a field where men were mowing
down the hay she pointed to the life-guards riding
along, and said: "Men, if you do not say that
this field belongs to the Earl of Cattenborough those
soldiers will cut you to pieces with their swords,"

So when the carriage came along the King called
one of the men to the side of it and said, '* Whose
is this field?"

The Earl of Cattenborough 95

And the man said, "It belongs to the Earl of
Cattenborough."

And the King turned to his son-in-law and said,
**I did not know that you had estates so near us."

And Jack said, "I had forgotten it myself."

And this only confirmed the King in his idea
about Jack's great wealth.

A little farther on there was another great field
in which men were raking hay. And Miss Puss
spoke to them as before. So, when the carriage
came up, they also declared that this field belonged
to the Earl of Cattenborough. And so it went on
through the whole drive. Then the King said,
'*Let us now go to your castle."

Then Jack looked at Miss Puss, and she said:
''If your Majesty will but wait an hour I will
go on before and order the castle to be made ready
for you."

With that she jumped away and went to the
castle of a great ogre and asked to see him. When
she came into his presence she said:

" I have come to give you warning. The King with
all his army is coming to the castle and will batter
its walls down and kill you if he finds you here."

''What shall I do.? What shall I do?" said the
ogre.

"Is there no place where you can hide yourself?"

"I am too big to hide," said the ogre, but my
mother gave me a powder, and when I take that
I can make myself as small as I like."

Europa's Fairy Book

"Well, why not take it now?" said the cat.

And with that he took the powder and shrunk
into a little body no bigger than a mouse. And
thereupon Miss Puss jumped upon him and ate

The Cat and the Ogre

him all up, and then went down into the great
yard of the castle and told the guards that it now
belonged to her Master the Earl of Cattenborough.
Then she ordered them to open the gates and let
in the King's carriage, which came along just then.
The King was delighted to find what a fine castle
his son-in-law possessed, and left his daughter the
Princess with him at the castle while he drove

The Earl of Cattenborough 97

back to his own palace. And Jack and the Prin-
cess lived happily in the castle.

But one day Miss Puss felt very ill and lay down
as if dead, and the chamberlain of the castle went
to Jack and said :

"My lord, your cat is dead."

And Jack said: *'Well, throw her out on the
dunghill."

But Miss Puss, when she heard it, called out:
''Had you not better throw me into the mill
stream.?"

And Jack remembered where he had come from
and was frightened that the cat would say. So
he ordered the physician of the castle to attend
to her, and ever after gave her whatever she wanted.

And when the King died he succeeded him, and
that was the end of the Earl of Cattenborough.

" Had You not Better Throw me into the Millstream ? "
7

The Child Finds the Feather Dress

THE SWAN MAIDENS

THERE was once a hunter who used often
to spend the whole night stalking the deer
or setting traps for game. Now it hap-
pened one night that he was watching in a clump
of bushes near the lake for some wild ducks that
he wished to trap. Suddenly he heard, high up
in the air, a whirring of wings and thought the
ducks were coming; and he strung his bow and
got ready his arrows. But instead of ducks there
appeared seven maidens all clad in robes made of
feathers, and they alighted on the banks of the

lake, and taking off their robes plunged into the

The Swan Maidens 99

waters and bathed and sported in the lake. They
were all beautiful, but of them all the youngest
and smallest pleased most the hunter's eye, and
he crept forward from the bushes and seized her
dress of plumage and took it back with him into
the bushes.

After the swan maidens had bathed and sported
to their heart's delight, they came back to the
bank wishing to put on their feather robes again;
and the six eldest found theirs, but the youngest
could not find hers. They searched and they
searched till at last the dawn began to appear,
and the six sisters called out to her:

"We must away; 'tis the dawn; you meet your
fate whatever it be." And with that they donned
their robes and flew away, and away, and away.

When the hunter saw them fly away he came
forward with the feather robe in his hand ; and the
swan maiden begged and begged that he would
give her back her robe. He gave her his cloak
but would not give her her robe, feeling that she
would fly away. And he made her promise to
marry him, and took her home, and hid her feather
robe where she could not find it. So they were
married and lived happily together and had two
fine children, a boy and a girl, who grew up strong
and beautiful; and their mother loved them with
all her heart.

One day her little daughter was playing at
hide-and-seek with her brother, and she went

si^^^'^^

lOo Europa's Fairy Book

behind the wainscoting to hide herself, and found
there a robe all made of feathers, and took it to
her mother. As soon as she saw it she put it on
and said to her daughter:

"Tell father that if he wishes to see me again
he must find me in the Land East o' the Sun and
West o' the Moon;" and with that she flew away.

When the hunter came home next morning his
little daughter told him what had happened and
what her mother said. So he set out to find his
wife in the Land East o' the Sun and West o' the
Moon. And he wandered for many days till he
came across an old man who had fallen on the
ground, and he lifted him up and helped him to
a seat and tended him till he felt better.

Then the old man asked him what he was doing
and where he was going. And he told him all
about the swan maidens and his wife, and he asked
the old man if he had heard of the Land East o'
the Sun and West o' the Moon.

And the old man said: "No, but I can ask.'*

Then he uttered a shrill whistle and soon all
the plain in front of them was filled with all of the
beasts of the world, for the old man was no less
than the King of the Beasts.

And he called out to them: "Who is there here
that knows where the Land is East o' the Sun
and West o' the Moon?" But none of the beasts
knew.

Then the old man said to the hunter: "You

The Swan Maidens loi

must go seek my brother who is the King of the
Birds," and told him how to find his brother.

And after a time he found the King of the Birds,
and told him what he wanted. So the King of the
Birds whistled loud and shrill, and soon the sky
was darkened with all the birds of the air, who
came around him. Then he asked:

"Which of you knows where is the Land East
o' the Sun and West o' the Moon.?"

And none answered, and the King of the Birds
said :

"Then you must consult my brother the King
of the Fishes," and he told him how to find him.

And the hunter went on, and he went on, and
he went on, till he came to the King of the Fishes,
and he told him what he wanted. And the King
of the Fishes went to the shore of the sea and
summoned all the fishes of the sea. And when
they came around him he called out:

"Which of you knows where is the Land East
o' the Sun and West o' the Moon.?"

And none of them answered, till at last a dol-
phin that had come late called out:

"I have heard that at the top of the Crystal
Mountain lies the Land East o' the Sun and West
o' the Moon; but how to get there I know not
save that it is near the Wild Forest."

So the hunter thanked the King of the Fishes
and went to the Wild Forest. And as he got near
there he found two men quarrelling, and as he

I02

Europa's Fairy Book

came near they came towards him and asked him
to settle their dispute.

"Now what is it?" said the hunter.

The Dolphin who Came Late

"Our father has just died and he has left but
two things, this cap which, whenever you wear it,
nobody can see you, and these shoon, which will
carry you through the air to whatever place you
will. Now I being the elder claim the right of
choice, which of these two I shall have; and he
declares that, as the younger, he has the right to
the shoon. Which do you think is right?"

The Swan Maidens 103

So the hunter thought and thought, and at last
he said :

"It is difficult to decide, but the best thing I
can think of is for you to race from here to that
tree yonder, and whoever gets back to me first
I will hand him either the shoes or the cap, which-
ever he wishes/'

So he took the shoes in one hand and the cap in
the other, and waited till they had started off
running towards the tree. And as soon as they
had started running towards the tree he put on the
shoes of swiftness and placed the invisible cap on
his head and wished himself in the Land East o*
the Sun and West o' the Moon. And he flew,
and he flew, and he flew, over seven Bends, and
seven Glens, and seven Mountain Moors, till at
last he came to the Crystal Mountain. And on
the top of that, as the dolphin had said, there
was the Land East o' the Sun and West o' the
Moon.

Now when he got there he took off his invisible
cap and shoes of swiftness and asked who ruled
over the Land; and he was told that there was a
King who had seven daughters who dressed in
swans' feathers and flew wherever they wished.

Then the hunter knew that he had come to the
Land of his wife. And he went boldly to the King
and said:

"Hail O King, I have come to seek my wife.'*

And the King said, "Who is she?"

I04 Europa's Fairy Book

And the hunter said, ''Your youngest daughter."
Then he told him how he had won her.

Then the King said: "If you can tell her from
her sisters then I know that what you say is true. *'
And he summoned his seven daughters to him, and
there they all were, dressed in their robes of feathers
and looking each like all the rest.

So the hunter said : " If I may take each of them
by the hand I will surely know my wife"; for when
she had dwelt with him she had sewn the little
shifts and dresses of her children, and the fore-
finger of her right hand had the marks of the
needle.

And when he had taken the hand of each of the
swan maidens he soon found which was his wife
and claimed her for his own. Then the King gave
them great gifts and sent them by a sure way down
the Crystal Mountain.

And after a while they reached home, and lived
happily together ever afterwards.

east d the Sun&Westo'th£Moon^^

19$

Androcles and the Lion

ANDROCLES AND THE LION

IT happened in the old days at Rome that a
slave named Androcles escaped from his master
and jfled into the forest, and he wandered
there for a long time till he was weary and well
nigh spent with hunger and despair. Just then
he heard a lion near him moaning and groaning
and at times roaring terribly. Tired as he was
Androcles rose up and rushed away, as he thought,

from the lion; but as he made his way through the

107

io8 Europa's Fairy Book

bushes he stumbled over the root of a tree and fell
down lamed, and when he tried to get up there
he saw the lion coming towards him, limping on
three feet and holding his fore-paw in front of him.
Poor Androcles was in despair; he had not strength
to rise and run away, and there was the lion com-
ing upon him. But when the great beast came up
to him instead of attacking him it kept on moaning
and groaning and looking at Androcles, who saw
that the lion was holding out his right paw, which
was covered with blood and much swollen. Look-
ing more closely at it Androcles saw a great big
thorn pressed into the paw, which was the cause
of all the lion's trouble. Plucking up courage he
seized hold of the thorn and drew it out of the
lion's paw, who roared with pain when the thorn
came out, but soon after found such relief from it
that he fawned upon Androcles and showed, in
every way that he knew, to whom he owed the
relief. Instead of eating him up he brought him
a young deer that he had slain, and Androcles
managed to make a meal from it. For some time
the lion continued to bring the game he had killed
to Androcles, who became quite fond of the huge
beast.

But one day a number of soldiers came march-
ing through the forest and found Androcles, and
as he could not explain what he was doing they
took him prisoner and brought him back to the
town from which he had fled. Here his master

Androcles and the Lion 109

soon found him and brought him before the author*
ities, and he was condemned to death because he
had fled from his master. Now it used to be the
custom to throw murderers and other criminals to
the Hons in a huge circus, so that while the crimi-
nals were punished the public could enjoy the
spectacle of a combat between them and the
wild beasts. So Androcles was condemned to be
thrown to the lions, and on the appointed day he
was led forth into the Arena and left there alone
with only a spear to protect him from the lion.
The Emperor was in the royal box that day and
gave the signal for the lion to come out and attack
Androcles. But when it came out of its cage and
got near Androcles, what do you think it did?
Instead of jumping upon him it fawned upon him
and stroked him with its paw and made no attempt
to do him any harm. It was of course the lion
which Androcles had met in the forest. The Em-
peror, surprised at seeing such a strange behaviour
in so cruel a beast, summoned Androcles to him
and asked him how it happened that this particular
lion had lost all its cruelty of disposition. So An-
drocles told the Emperor all that had happened
to him and how the lion was showing its gratitude
for his having relieved it of the thorn. Thereupon
the Emperor pardoned Androcles and ordered his
master to set him free, while the lion was taken
back into the forest and let loose to enjoy liberty
once more.

Day-Dreaming

DAY-DREAMING

NOW there was once a man at Bagdad who
had seven sons, and when he died he left
to each of them one hundred dirhems;
and his fifth son, called Alnaschar the Babbler,
invested all this money in some glassware, and,
putting it in a big tray, from which to show and
sell it, he sat down on a raised bench, at the foot
of a wall, against which he leant back, placing the
tray on the ground in front of him. As he sat he
began day-dreaming and said to himself: "I have
laid out a hundred dirhems on this glass. Now I
will surely sell it for two hundred, and with it I
will buy more glass and sell that for four hundred;

Day-Dreaming iii

nor will I cease to buy and sell till I become master
of much wealth. With this I will buy all kinds of
merchandise and jewels and perfumes and gain
great profit on them till, God willing, I will make
my capital a hundred thousand dinars or two mil-
lion dirhems. Then I will buy a handsome house,
together with slaves and horses and trappings of
gold, and eat and drink, nor will there be a singing
girl in the city but I will have her to sing to me."
This he said looking at the tray before him with
glassware worth a hundred dirhems. Then he
continued: "When I have amassed a hundred
thousand dinars I will send out marriage-brokers
to demand for me in marriage the hand of the
Vizier's daughter, for I hear that she is perfect in
beauty and of surpassing grace. I will give her a
dowry of a thousand dinars, and if her father con-
sent, 'tis well; if not, I will take her by force, in
spite of him. When I return home, I will buy ten
little slaves and clothes for myself such as are
worn by kings and sultans and get a saddle of gold,
set thick with precious jewels. Then I will mount
and parade the city, with slaves before and behind
me, while the people will salute me and call down
blessings upon me: after which I will go to the
Vizier, the girl's father, with slaves behind and
before me, as well as on either hand. When the
Vizier sees me, he will rise and seating me in his
own place, sit down below me, because I am his
son-in-law. Now I will have with me two slaves

112 Europa's Fairy Book

with purses, in each a thousand dinars, and I will
give him the thousand dinars of the dowry and
make him a present of another thousand dinars
so that he may recognize my nobihty and generos-
ity and greatness of mind and the littleness of the
world in my eyes; and for every ten words he will
say to me, I will answer him only two. Then I
will return to my house, and if any one come to me
on the bride's part, I will make him a present of
money and clothe him in a robe of honour; but if
he bring me a present I will return it to him and
will not accept it so that they may know how great
of soul I am." After a while Alnaschar continued:
**Then I will command them to bring the Vizier's
daughter to me in state and will get ready my
house in fine condition to receive her. When the
time of the unveiling of the bride is come, I will
put on my richest clothes and sit down on a couch
of brocaded silk, leaning on a cushion and turning
my eyes neither to the right nor to the left, to
show the haughtiness of my mind and the serious-
ness of my character. My bride shall stand before
me like the full moon, in her robes and ornaments,
and I, out of my pride and my disdain, will not
look at her, till all who are present shall say to me:
'0 my lord, thy wife and thy handmaid stands
before thee; deign to look upon her, for standing
is irksome to her.' And they will kiss the earth
before me many times, whereupon I will lift my
eyes and give one glance at her, then bend down

Day-Dreaming 113

my head again. Then they will carry her to the
bride-chamber, and meanwhile I will rise and
change my clothes for a richer suit. When they
bring in the bride for the second time, I will not
look at her till they have implored me several
times, when I will glance at her and bow down my
head; nor will I cease doing thus, till they have
made an end of parading and displaying her.
Then I will order one of my slaves to fetch a purse,
and, giving it to the tire-women, command them
to lead her to the bride-chamber. When they
leave me alone with the bride, I will not look at
her or speak to her, but will sit by her with averted
face, that she may say I am high of soul. Pre-
sently her mother will come to me and kiss my head
and hands and say to me: 'O my lord, look on thy
handmaid, for she longs for thy favour, and heal
her spirit.' But I will give her no answer; and
when she sees this, she will come and kiss my feet
and say, 'O my lord, verily my daughter is a beau-
tiful girl, who has never seen man; and if thou
show her this aversion, her heart will break; so do
thou be gracious to her and speak to her.' Then
she will rise and fetch a cup of wine, and her daugh-
ter will take it and come to me; but I will leave
her standing before me, while I recline upon a
cushion of cloth of gold, and will not look at her
to show the haughtiness of my heart, so that she
will think me to be a Sultan of exceeding dignity
and will say to me: 'O my lord, for God's sake,

114 Europa's Fairy Book

do not refuse to take the cup from thy servant's
hand, for indeed I am thy handmaid.' But I will
not speak to her, and she will press me, saying:
'Needs must thou drink it,' and put it to my lips.
Then I will shake my fist in her face and spurn
her with my foot thus." So saying, he gave a
kick with his foot and knocked over the tray of
glass, which fell over to the ground, and all that
was in it was broken.

KEEP COOL

THERE was once a man and he had three sons,
and when he died they all had to go out to
seek a Hving. So the eldest went out first,
leaving his two brothers at home, and went to a
neighbouring farmer to try and get work from
him.

"Well, well, my man,'' said the farmer, "I can
give you work but on only one condition."

"What is that?"

"I cannot abear any high talk on my farm.
You must keep cool and not lose your temper."

"Oh, never bother about that," said the young-
ster, "I never lose my temper, or scarcely ever."

"Ah, but if you do," said the farmer, " I make it
a condition that I shall tear a strip of your skin
from your nape to your waist; that will make a
pretty ribbon to tie around the throat of my dog
there."

"That doesn't suit me," was the reply. "So
fare thee well, master, I must try another place."

"Keep cool, keep cool," said the farmer. "I
am a just man; what's good for the man I consider
good for the master. So if I should lose my tem-

ii6 Europa's Fairy Book

per I am quite willing that you should take the
ribbon of flesh from my back/'

"Oh, if that's so," said the youngster, "I'll
agree to stay. But we must have it in black and
white."

So they sent for the notary and wrote it all
down that if either lost his temper he should also
lose a strip of skin from his back. But the eldest
son had not been in the house a week when the
master gave him so hard a task that he lost his
temper and had to give up a strip of skin from his
back. So he went home and told his brothers
about it.

Well, the brothers were savage at hearing what
he had suffered. And the second son went to the
same man in the hope of getting revenge for his
brother. But the same thing happened to him,
and he had to come with a strip of skin from his
back like his elder brother.

Now the third son, whose name was Jack, made
up his mind he wouldn't be done like the other
two. And he went to the man and he engaged
himself to serve him for the same wage but on the
same conditions that his two brothers had done.

The very first morning that Jack had to go out
to work his master gave him a piece of dry bread
and told him to mind the sheep.

"Is this all I'm to get to eat?" said Jack.

"Why, yes," said the master; "there'll be supper
when you come home."

Keep Cool 117

Jack was going to complain when his master
called out to him, "Keep cool, Jack, keep cool,'*
and pointed to his back.

So Jack swallowed his rage and went out into
the field. But on his way he met a man, to whom
he sold one of the sheep for five shillings, and went
and bought enough to eat and drink for a whole
week.

When he got home that evening his master
began to count the sheep, and when he found one
was missing, he said to Jack:

"You've let one of the sheep run away."

"No, no, sir," said Jack, "I sold him to a man
passing along."

"You shouldn't have done that without my
telling you; but where's the money .^"

"Oh, with the money," said Jack, "I went and
bought me some eats." And he showed him
what he had bought.

The master was going to fly in a rage, but Jack
said to him: "Keep cool, master, keep cool," and
pointed to his back. So he remembered and said
nothing more.

The next day Jack was ordered to take the pigs
to market to sell them, and after he had cut off
all their tails he sold them and pocketed the
money; and then he went to a marsh near the
farm and planted all the tails in the marsh.

When he got home the master asked him if he
had sold the pigs.

ii8 Europa's Fairy Book

He said: "No, they all rushed into the marsh
at the foot of the valley."

"I don't believe you," said the master, and was
going to get into a rage when Jack said to him:

"Keep cool, master, keep cool."

So he went with Jack to the marsh, and when
he saw the pigs' tails all peeping out the marsh he
went and plucked one of them out of the ground,
and Jack said:

"There, you've torn the tail from the poor pig's
back."

Then the master was going to get into a rage
again but Jack said: "Keep cool, master, keep
cool," and pointed to his back.

Next day the master didn't Hke sending Jack
out with the animals or else he might sell them to
get some dinner. So he said to him:

"Jack, I want you today to clean the horses and
the stable within and without."

"Very well, master," said Jack, and went to
the stable; and he whitewashed it within and he
whitewashed it without. Then he went to the
horses and killed them and took out their insides
and cleaned them within; and then he washed
their skins.

In the evening the master came to see how Jack
had got on with his work and was delighted to
find the stable looking so clean.

"But where are the horses.?" he said; and Jack
pointed to them lying dead on their backs.

Keep Cool 119

"Why, what have you done?" said the master.

" You told me to clean them within and without
and how could I clean them within without killing
them?'' said Jack.

Then the master was just going to fly into a
rage, when Jack said to him: "Keep cool, master,
keep cool," and pointed to his back.

So next day the master had sent Jack out with
the sheep, but so that he should not sell any of
them to get money for his lunch he sent his wife
with them telling her to watch Jack from behind
a bush, and if he tried to sell any of the sheep to
stop him. But Jack saw her and didn't say any-
thing or try and sell any of the sheep.

But next day, when he went out with them, he
took with him his gun, and when the farmer's
wife got behind the bush to watch him, he called
out: "Ah, wolf, I see you," and fired his gun at
her and hit her in the leg. She screamed out, and
the master came running up and said:

"What's this. Jack, what's this?"

Then Jack said : " Why, master, I thought that
was a wolf and I shot my gun at it and it turned
out to be the missus."

"How dare you, you scoundrel, shoot my wife!"
cried out the master.

"Don't be in a rage, master, don't be in a rage,"
said Jack.

"Anybody would be in a rage if his wife was
shot," said the master.

120

Europa's Fairy Book

"Well, then," said Jack, "Til have that strip
off your back." And as there were witnesses pre-
sent the master had to let Jack take a strip of skin
from his back.

And with that he went home to his brothers.

The Pig*s Tail

The Dummy

THE MASTER THIEF

THERE was once a farmer who had a son
named Will, and he sent him out in the
world to learn a trade and seek his fortune.
Now he hadn't gone far when he was stopped by
a band of robbers who called out to him:
"Your purse or your life!"
And he gave them his purse and said: "That is
an easy way of getting money, Fd like to be a
robber myself/'

131

122 Europa^s Fairy Book

So they agreed to take him into their band if he
could show he was able to do a robber's work.
And the first person who went through the wood
again they sent Will to see if he could rob him.
So he went up to the man and said to him:

"Your purse or your life!''

The man gave him his purse, whereupon Will took
all the money out of it and gave it back to the man
and took the purse back to the robbers, who said:

"Well, what luck?"

"Oh, I got his purse from him quite easily; here
it is."

"Well, what about the money?" said they.

"Well, that I gave back to him. You only
asked me to say, *Your purse or your life.'"

At that the robbers roared with laughter and
said: "You'll never be a thief."

Will was quite ashamed of making such a fool
of himself and determined he would do better
next time.

So one day he saw two farmers driving a herd
of cattle to market, and told the robbers that he
knew a way to take the cattle from them without
fighting for them.

"If you do that," said they, "you will be a
Master Thief."

Then Will went a little way ahead of the robbers
with a stout cord, which he tied under his armpits
and then fixed himself upon a branch of a tree over
the road so that it looked as if he had been hanged.

The Master Thief 123

When the farmers came with their cattle they
said: "There's one of the robbers hung up for an
example," and drove their cattle on farther.

Then Will got down, and running across a by-
path got again in front of the farmers and hung
himself up as before on a tree by the side of the
road.

When the farmers came up to him one of them
said: "Goodness gracious me, why there's the
same robber hanged up here again."

"Oh, that's not the same robber," said the
other.

"Yes, it is," said the first, "for I noticed he had
a white horn button on his coat, and see, there it
is. It must be the same man."

"How could that be.?" said the other. "We
left that one hanging up dead half a mile back."

"I am sure it is."

" I am certain it isn't."

" Well, give a good look at him, and we'll go back
and see if it isn't the same."

So the farmers went back to look, and Will took
their cattle and drove them back to the robbers,
who agreed that he was a Master Thief.

He stopped with them for several years and
made much money, and then drove back in a
carriage and pair to his father's farm.

When he came there his father came to the
carriage and bowed to him and asked him, "What
is your pleasure, sir?"

124 Europa's Fairy Book

"Oh, I want to make some inquiries about a
young fellow named William who used to be on this
farm. What has become of him?"

"Oh, I don't know; he was my son and I have
not heard from him for many years; I am afraid
he has come to no good."

"Look at me closely and see if you see any re-
semblance to him."

Then the farmer recognized Will and took him
into the farmhouse and called Will's mother to
come and welcome him back.

"So, Will, you've come back in a carriage and
pair," said she. "How have you earnt so much
money?"

So Will told his mother that he had become a
Master Thief but begged her not to mention it to
any one, but to tell them that he had been an
explorer and had found gold.

Well, the very next day a neighbouring gossip
called in upon Will's mother and asked her to tell
her the news about Will and what he had been
doing.

So she said: "Oh, Will has been an exploiter, I
mean explorer, but he really was a Master Thief.
But you mustn't tell anybody; you'll promise,
won't you?"

So the gossip promised, but of course the moment
she got home she told all about Will being a Master
Thief.

Now the lord of the village soon heard of this.

The Master Thief 125

and he called Will up to him and said: "I hear you
are a Master Thief. You know that you deserve
death for that. But if you can prove that you
are really a master in your thievery I will let you
go free. First let us see whether you can steal
my horse out of my stable tonight.''

To prevent his horse being stolen, the lord or-
dered it to be saddled and put a stable boy on it,
telling him to stop there all night.

Will took two flasks of brandy into one of which
he had poured a drug, and dressing himself as an
old woman he went to the lord's stable late at
night and asked to rest there as it was so cold and
she was so tired.

The stable boy pointed to some straw in the
corner and told the woman she might rest there
for a time.

When she sat down she took one of the brandy
flasks out of her pocket and drank it off, saying,
"Ah, that warms one! Would you like to have a
drink?"

And when the stable boy said "Yes," Will gave
him the other flask, and as soon as he had drunk
it he fell dead asleep.

So Will lifted him off of the horse and put him
on the cross-bar of the stable as if he were riding,
and then he got on the horse and rode away.

In the morning the lord went down to the stable
and there he saw the stable boy riding the cross-
bar and his horse gone.

126 Europa's Fairy Book

Then Will rode up to the stable on the lord's
horse and said: "Am I not a Master Thief?"

"Oh, stealing my horse was not so hard. Let us
see if you can steal the sheet from off my bed
tonight. But, look out, if you come near my bed-
room I shall shoot you."

That night Will took a dummy man and propped
it up on a ladder, which he put up to the lord's
bedroom.

And when the lord saw the dummy coming in
at the window he shot his pistol at it and it fell
down. He rushed downstairs and out into the
open air looking to see if he had shot Will.

Meanwhile Will went up to the lord's bedroom
and, speaking in the lord's voice, said to his wife:
"Give me the sheet, my dear, to wrap the body
of that poor Master Thief in."

So she gave him the sheet and he went away.

Next morning Will brought up the sheet to the
lord, who said: "That was a good trick, I must
confess. But if you want really to prove that you
are a Master Thief bring to me the priest in a bag,
and then I will own your mastery."

So that night Will took a number of crabs and
tied candle ends upon them, and taking them to
the cemetery lit the candle ends and let them loose.

When the priest of the village saw these lights
moving over the cemetery he came to the door and
watched them and called out:

"What is that?"

The Master Thief 127

Now Will had dressed himself up like an angel.

"It is the last day of judgment, and I have come
for thee, Father Lawrence, to carry thee to heaven.
Come within this bag, and in a short time thou wilt
be in thine appointed place."

So Father Lawrence crept within the bag, and
Will dragged him along, and when he bumped
against the ground Father Lawrence said:

"Oh, we must be going through purgatory.*'

And then Will took him to the hen-coops and
threw him in among the chickens and ducks and
geese, and Father Lawrence said:

"We must be getting near the angels for I hear
the rustling of their wings."

So Will went up to the lord's house and made
him come down to the hen-coops and there showed
him the priest in the bag, and the lord said:

"I do not know how you do these things. I
cannot tell if you are really a Master Thief unless
you take my horse from under me. If you can
do that I will call you the Master of all Master
Thieves."

Well, next day. Will dressed himself up as an
old woman, and taking a cart with an old horse
put in it a cask of beer, and then went driving
along with his thumb in the bunghole.

Soon after he met the lord on horseback who
asked him if he had seen a man like Will lurking
about there in the forest.

"I think I have," said Will, "and could bring

128 Europa's Fairy Book

him to you if you wanted. But I can't leave this
cask before the taps come out; I have to keep my
thumb in the bunghole."

"Oh, I will do that," said the lord, "if you will
only go and get that man. Take my horse and run
him down."

So Will got on the lord's horse and rode off,
leaving the nobleman with his thumb in the bung-
hole. He waited and he waited and he waited till
at last he drove in the cart back to his house, and
there he saw no less a person than Will himself
riding his horse.

Then the noble said unto Will: "You are indeed
a Master Thief. Go your way in peace."

Anima Goes down the Hole

THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM

ONCE upon a time there was a king and queen,
as many a one has been, and they had three
daughters, all of them beautiful; but the
most beautiful of all was the youngest whose name
was Anima. Now it happened one day that all
three sisters were playing in the meadows, and
Anima saw a bush with lovely flowers. As she

wished to carry it home to plant in her own garden

129

I30 Europa's Fairy Book

she plucked at the root and plucked and plucked
again. At last it gave way, and she saw beneath
it a stairway going down farther into the earth.
Being a brave girl and very curious as to where this
could lead to, without calling her sisters, she crept
down the stairs for a long, long way, till at last she
came out into the open air again in a country which
she had never seen before, and not far away, in
front of her, she saw a magnificent palace.

Anima ran towards it, and when she came to the
door she knocked at the knocker and it opened
without anybody being there. So she went in and
found all inside richly bedecked with marble walls
and rich trappings; and, as she went along, lovely
music broke out and came with her wherever she
went. At last she came to a room with cosy
couches, and she threw herself into one because she
was tired with her searching. Scarcely had she
done so, when there appeared a table coming to-
wards her on wheels, without anybody moving it,
and upon the table were delightful fruits and cakes
and cool drinks of all kinds. So Anima took as
much as she needed and fell into slumber and did
not awake till it was getting dark. And then ap-
peared through the air two large candlesticks, each
with three candles in them; and they swam
through the air and settled upon the tables near
her, so that she had plenty of light. But she cried
out: "Oh, I must go back to my father and
mother; how shall I go? How shall I go?"

The Unseen Bridegroom 131

Then a sweet voice near her spoke out and said:
"Abide with me and be my bride, and thou shalt
have all thy heart desires. "

But Anima cried out in fear and trembling:
" But who art thou ? Who art thou ? Come forth
and let me see thee. "

But the voice replied: "Nay, nay, that is forbid-
den. Never must thou look upon my face or we
must part, for my mother, the Queen, wishes not
that I should wed."

So sweet was his voice and so lonely did Anima
feel, that she consented to become his bride, and
they lived happily together, though he never came
near her till all was dark, so that she could not see
him. But after a time Anima became weary even
with all these splendours and happiness, and wished
to see her own people again, and said to her
husband:

"Please may I go home and see my father and
my mother and my dear sisters?"

"Nay, nay, child," said the voice of her husband,
"ill will come of it if thou seest them again, and
thou and I must part. "

But she kept on begging him to let her return
to her people for a visit, or at least to let them
come and see her, till at last he consented and sent
a message to her father and mother and sisters,
asking them to come and spend some days with her,
at a time when he himself would have to be absent.
So the King and Queen and Anima's two sisters

132 Europa's Fairy Book

came and wondered at the splendours of her new
home, and, above all, was surprised to find that
they were waited on by invisible hands, who did
all for them that they could wish for. But Anima's
sisters soon became both curious and envious;
they could not guess who or what her husband was,
and envied her having so wonderful a household.

So one of them said to her: "But Anima, how
marry a man without ever seeing him? There
must be some reason why he will not show himself;
perhaps he is deformed, or maybe he is some beast
transformed."

But Anima laughed and said: "He is no beast,
that I am sure; and see how kind he is to me. I
do not care if he is not as handsome as he does."

Still the sisters kept on insisting that there must
be something wrong where there was something
concealed, and at last they got their mother the
Queen to say to her as she was leaving: "Now,
Anima, I think it right to know who and what thy
husband is. Wait till he is asleep and light a
lamp, and then see what he is. "

Soon after this they all departed. And the same
night her husband came to Anima again, but she
had already prepared a lamp of oil with a spark of
fire ready to kindle it. And when she heard him
sleeping by her side she lit the candle and looked at
him. She was delighted to find that he was most
handsome, with a strong and well-made body.
But as she was looking at him her hand trembled

TRefamp

133

The Unseen Bridegroom 13S

with dehght and three drops of oil fell upon his
cheek from the lamp she was holding. Then he
woke up and saw her, and knew that she had broken
her promise, and said:

'*0h, Anima, oh, Anima, why hast thou done
this? Here we part until thou canst persuade
my mother the Queen to let thee see me again."

With that came a rumbling of thunder and her
lamp went out, and Anima fell to the ground in a
swoon. And when she awoke the palace had dis-
appeared and she was on a bleak, bleak moor. She
walked and she walked till she came to a house by
the wayside where an old woman received her and
gave her something to eat and drink, and then
asked Anima how she came there. So Anima told
all that had happened to her, and the old woman
said :

''Thou hast married my nephew, my sister's son,
and I fear she will never forgive thee. But pluck
up courage, go to her and demand thy husband,
and she'll have to give him up to thee if thou canst
do all that she demands from thee. Take this
twig; if she asks what I think she will ask, strike
it on the ground thrice and help will come to thee. ''

Then she told Anima the way to her husband's
mother, and, as it was far distant, gave her direc-
tions where she could find another sister of hers who
might help her. So she came to another house
along the way where she saw another old woman,
to whom she told her story, and this old woman,

136 Europa's Fairy Book

the Queen's sister, gave her a raven's feather and
told her how to use it.

At last Anima came to the palace of the Queen,
the mother of her invisible husband, and when she
came into her presence demanded to see him.

"What, thou low-born mortal, " cried the Queen ;
"how didst thou dare to wed my son?''

"It was his choice," said Anima, "and I am now
his wife. Surely you will let me see him once
more. "

"Well," said the Queen, "if thou canst do what
I demand of thee thou shalt see my son again. And
first go into that barn where my stupid stewards
have poured together all the wheat and oats and
rice into one great heap. If by nightfall thou
canst separate them into three heaps perhaps I
may grant thy request. "

So Anima was led to the great barn of the Queen
and there was a huge heap of grain all mixed to-
gether, and she was left alone, and the barn was
closed upon her. Then she bethought herself of
the twig that the Queen's sister had given her, and
she struck it thrice upon the ground, whereupon
thousands of ants came out of the ground and
began to work upon the heap of grain, some of them
taking the wheat to one corner, some the oats to
another, and the rest carrying off the grains of rice
to a third. By nightfall all the grain had been
separated, and when the Queen came to let out
Anima she found the task had been done.

The Unseen Bridegroom 137

"Thou hast had help," she cried; "we'll see to-
morrow if thou canst do something by thyself. "

Next day the Queen took her into a large loft
at the top of the palace almost filled with feathers
of geese, of eider ducks, and of swans, and from her
cupboard she took twelve mattresses and said:

"'See these mattresses; by the end of the day
thou must fill four of them with swans' feathers,
four of them with eider-down, and the rest with
feathers of geese. Do that and then we will see. "

With that she left Anima and closed and locked
the door behind her. And Anima remembered
what the other Queen's sister had given her, and
took out the raven's feather and waved it thrice.
Immediately birds, and birds, and birds came flying
through the windows, and each of them picked out
diflFerent kinds of feathers and placed them in the
mattresses, so that iong before night the twelve
mattresses were filled as the Queen had ordered.

Again at nightfall the Queen came in, and as
soon as she saw that the second task had been
carried out, she said:

"Again thou hast had help; tomorrow thou
shalt have something to do which thou alone
canst carry out."

Next day the Queen summoned her and gave
her a small flask and a letter and said to her:

"Take these to my sister, the Queen of the
Nether-World, and bring back what she will give
to thee safely, and then I may let thee see my son. "

138 Europa's Fairy Book

'^How can I find your sister?" said Anima.

''That thou must find for thyself," and left her.

Poor Anima did not know which way to go, but
as she walked along the voice of some one invisible
to her said softly:

"Take with thee a copper coin and a loaf of
bread and go down that deep defile there till thou
comest to a deep river and there thou wilt see an
old man ferrying people across the river. Put
the coin between your teeth and let him take it
from you, and he will carry you across, but speak
not to him. Then, on the other side, thou wilt
come to a dark cave, and at the entrance is a savage
dog; give him the loaf of bread and he will let
thee pass and thou wilt soon come to the Queen
of the Nether- World. Take what she gives thee,
but beware lest thou eat anything or sit down while
thou art within the cave. "

Anima recognized the voice of her husband and
did all that he had told her, till she came to the
Queen of the Nether- World, who read the letter
she had handed to her. Then she offered Anima
cake and wine, but she refused, shaking her head,
but saying nothing. Then the Queen of the
Nether- World gave her a curiously wrought box
and said to her:

"Take this, I pray thee, to my sister, but beware
lest thou open it on the way or ill may befall thee, "
and then dismissed her.

Anima went back past the great dog and crossed

The Unseen Bridegroom

139

the dark river. When she got into the forest
beyond she could not resist the temptation to open
the box, and when she did so out jumped a number

The Dog

of little dolls, which commenced dancing about in
front of her and around her and amused her much
by their playful antics. But soon the night was
coming on, and she wanted to put them into the
box, and they ran away and hid behind the trees.

140

Europa's Fairy Book

and Anima knew that she could not get them back.
So she sat down upon the ground and wept, and
wept, and wept. But at last she heard the voice
of her husband once more, who said :

"See what thy curiosity has again brought upon

The Casket

thee; thou canst not bring back the box to my
mother just as my aunt the Queen of the Nether-
World has given it to you, and so we shall not see
one another again."

But at this Anima burst out into weeping and
wailing so piteously that he took compassion on her
and said:

"See that golden bough on yonder tree; pluck

The Unseen Bridegroom 141

It and strike the ground three times with it and
see what thou wilt see. "

Anima did as she had been told, and soon the
little dolls came running from behind the trees and
jumped of their own accord into the box; and she
closed it quickly and took it back to the Queen,
her husband's mother.

The Queen opened the box, and when she found
all the little dolls were in it laughed aloud and said :

" I know who has helped thee ; I cannot help my-
self; I suppose thou must have my son.''

And as soon as she had said this Anima's hus-
band appeared and took her to him, and they lived
happy ever afterwards.

The Master-Maid with the Glass Aze

THE MASTER-MAID

THERE was once a king and a queen and they
had a bonny boy whom they loved beyond
anything. Now when he was grown up
into a fine young prince, the King, his father, went
a-hunting one day and lost his way in the forest,
and when he came through it he found a raging
stream between him and his palace. He did not

142

The Master-Maid 143

know how to get home, when suddenly a huge
giant came out of the forest and said :

**What would you give if I carried you across?"

** Anything, anything," said the King.

" Will you give me the first thing that meets you
as you come to the palace gate?"

The King thought for a while and then remem-
bered that whenever he came to the gate of the
palace his favourite deerhound Bevis always came
to greet him. So, though he was sorry to lose him,
he thought it was worth while, and agreed with the
giant.

Thereupon the giant took the King upon his
shoulders and wading across the raging stream
landed him on the farther bank and saying to him,
'* Remember what you have promised," went
back again to the other side.

The King soon found his way towards the palace,
but as he came to the palace gate it happened that
his son Prince Edgar was standing there, and
before Bevis the hound could dash out to greet his
master. Prince Edgar had rushed towards his
father and caught him by the hand. The King
was rather startled but thought to himself:

**0h, how will the giant know who met me?
After all I intended to give him Bevis, and that's
what ril do when he comes. "

The next day the giant came to the castle gates
and asked to see the King, and when he was
admitted to his presence he said:

144 Europa's Fairy Book

" I come for your promise. "

"'Bring Bevis the hound," said the King to his
attendants.

But the giant said: '*I want no hound; give me
your Prince."

The King was alarmed at finding that the giant
knew who had met him; but he told him that the
Prince was away, but he would send and summon
him. Then he called his High Steward and told
him to dress up the herd-boy of the palace in some
of the Prince's clothes. And when this was done
he gave him to the giant, who hoisted him on his
shoulder and strode off with him.

When they had gone a little way along the herd-
boy in the Prince's suit called out:

'*Stop, stop, I am hungry; this is the time the
herd rests and I have my luncheon. "

Then the giant knew that he had been deceived
and went back to the King's palace and said to him :

"Take your herd-boy and give me the Prince."

The King was again startled to find that the
giant had found out his trick, but thought to
himself:

"Well, he didn't find out at once; we'll have
another try," and ordered his Steward to dress up
the shepherd boy in the Prince's clothes and give
him to the giant.

Again the giant strode off with the shepherd boy
in Prince's clothes upon his shoulder, and they had
not gone far when the boy called out :

igj TTic T^ince Wants fxis LuncfiA,^:,.,^^

« 10

145

The Master-Maid 147

" Stop, stop, it is time for lunch ; this is when the
sheep all rest. '*

Then again the giant knew that he had been
tricked and rushed back in a rage to the King's
palace and threw the shepherd boy to the ground
and called out:

"Take your shepherd boy and give me the Prince
you promised, or it will be worse for you. "

This time the King dared not refuse and called
Prince Edgar to him and gave him to the giant, who
seized him as before and put him on his shoulder.

After they had gone a little way, the Prince
called out:

*' Tis time to stop ; this is the time I have
always lunched with my father the King and my
mother the Queen.''

Then the giant knew that he had got the right
Prince and took him home to his castle. When
he got him there he gave him his supper and told
him that he would have to work for him and that
his first work would be next day to clean out the
stable.

"That's not much," thought the Prince, and
went to bed quite happy and comfortable.

Next day the giant took Edgar into the giant's
stable, which was full of straw and dirt and all
huddled up, and pointing to a pitchfork said:

"Clear all of this straw out of this stable by
tonight, " and left him to his task.

The Prince thought this was an easy thing to do.

148 Europa's Fairy Book

and before starting went to get a drink at the well,
and there he saw a most beautiful maiden sitting by
the well and knitting.

"Who are you?" said she.

And so he told her all that had happened and said :

**At any rate I have an easy master; all he has
given me to do is to clear out the stable. "

"That is not so easy as you think, " said the maid
"How are you going to do it.^"

"With a pitchfork."

"You will find that not so easy; if you try to use
the pitchfork in the ordinary way, the more you
shove the more there will be; but turn the pitch-
fork upside-down and push with the handle and
all the straw and stuff will run away from it. "

So Prince Edgar went back to the stable, and
sure enough, when he tried to push the straw with
the fork it only grew more and more, but if he
turned the handle towards it the straw moved
away from the fork and so he soon cleared it out
of the stable.

When the giant came home the first thing he did
was to go to the stable; and when he saw it had all
been cleared out he said to the Prince:

"Ah, you've been talking to my Master-Maid.
Well, tomorrow you'll have to cut down that
clump of trees."

"Very well, Master," said Prince Edgar, and
thought that would not be difficult.

But next morning the giant gave him an axe

The Master-Maid ^ 149

made of glass and told him that he must cut down
every one of the trees before nightfall.

When he had gone away, the Prince went to the
Master-Maid and told her what his task was.

** You cannot do that with such an axe, but never
mind, I can help you. Sleep here in peace and
when you wake up you will see what you will see. "

So Prince Edgar trusted the Master-Maid and
lay down and slept till late in the afternoon, when
he woke up and looked, and there were the trees all
felled and the Master-Maid was smiling by his side.

"How did you do it?" he said.

"That I may not say, but done it is, and that is
all that you need care for. "

When the giant came home, the first thing he did
was to go to the clump of trees and found, to his
surprise, that they had all been felled.

"Ah, you've spoken to my Master-Maid," he
said once more.

"Who is she?" said the Prince.

" You know well enough, " said the giant. " But
for her you could not have cut down those trees
with that glass axe."

" I do not know what you mean, " said the Prince.
"But at any rate, there you have your trees cut
down, what more do you want?"

"Well, well," grumbled the giant, "we'll see to-
morrow whether you can do what I tell you then, "
and would not say what his task should be next
day.

I5P Europa's Fairy Book

When the morning came, the giant pointed to the
tallest tree in the forest near them, and said:

** Do you see that birds' nest in the top of that
tree ? In it are six eggs ; you must dimb up there
and get all those eggs for me before nightfall, and
if one is broken woe betide you!"

At that Prince Edgar did not feel so happy, for
there were no branches to the tree till very near the
top, and it was as smooth, as smooth as it could be,
and he did not see how possibly he could reach the
birds' nest. But when the giant had gone out for
the day he went at once to the Master-Maid and
told her of his new task.

"That is the hardest of all," said the Master-
Maid. "There is only one way to do the task.
You must cut me up into small pieces and take
out my bones, and out of the bones you must make
a ladder, and with that ladder you can reach the
top."

"That I will never do, " said the Prince. You've
been so good to me, shall I do you harm ? Before
that, I should suffer whatever punishment the giant
will give me for not carrying out the task. "

"But all will be well," said the Master-Maid.
"As soon as you have brought down the nest, all
that you will have to do is to put the bones to-
gether and sprinkle on them the water from this
flask, and then I shall be whole again just as
before."

After much persuasion the Prince agreed to

The Master-Maid 151

do what the Master-Maid had told him, and made
a ladder out of her bones and climbed up to the
top of the tree and took the birds' nest with the six
eggs in it, and then he put the bones together, but
forgot to put one little bone in its proper place.

So when he had sprinkled the water over the
bones the Master-Maid stood up before him just as
before, but the little finger of her left hand was
not there. She cried and said:

"Ah, why did you not do what I told you — put
all my bones together in their place? You forgot
my little finger; I shall never have one all the days
of my life. ''

When the giant came home, he asked the Prince:

"Where is the birds' nest?"

And the Prince brought it to him with the eggs
all safe within it. And then the giant said :

"Ah, you have spoken to my Master-Maid."

"Whom do you mean by your Master-Maid?"
said the Prince. "There are your eggs, what more
do you want?"

But the giant said: "Well, as the Master-Maid
has helped you so far she can help you always.
You shall marry her today and sleep in my own
four-poster. "

The Prince was well content with that arrange-
ment and went and sought the Master-Maid and
told her what the giant had said.

The Master-Maid wept and said: "You know
not what he means. His four-poster rolls up and

152 Europa's Fairy Book

would crush us and we would be dead before the
morning. Let me think, let me think. ''

So the Master-Maid took an apple and divided it
into six parts and put two at the foot of the bed
and two at the door of the room and two at the
foot of the stairs.

When night came, the Master-Maid and her
Prince went up into the room with the four-poster,
but as soon as it was dark crept down the stairs
and went out to the stable and chose two of the
swiftest horses there and rode away as quickly
as they could.

The giant waited for some time after they had
gone upstairs and then called out:

"Are you asleep .f"'

And the two apple shares near the bed called out:

"Not yet, not yet!"

So after waiting some time he called out again:

"Are you asleep?"

And the apple shares at the door called out:

"Not yet, not yet!"

And still a third time the giant called out:

"Are you asleep.^"

And the apple shares on the stairs replied:

"Not yet, not yet!"

Then the giant knew that the voice was outside
the bedroom, and rushed up to find Edgar and his
bride, but found they were gone. He rushed to the
stable and chose his great horse Dapplegrim and
rode after Prince Edgar and the Master-Maid.

The Master-Maid 153

They had gone on a good way in front ; but after
a time they heard the trampHng of the hoofs of
the great horse Dapplegrim, and the Master-Maid
said to Prince Edgar:

'*That is the giant; he will soon overtake us if
we do not do something." And she jumped off her
horse and bade Prince Edgar do the same.

Then the Master-Maid took three twigs and
threw them behind her with magic spells; and they
grew and they grew and they grew, till they became
a huge thick forest. And the Master-Maid and
Edgar jumped upon their horses again and rode
away as fast as they could.

But the giant, as soon as he came to the forest,
had to take his axe from his side and hew his way
through the thick trees, so that Edgar and the
Master-Maid got far ahead. But soon they heard
once more the trampling of Dapplegrim close
behind them; and the Master-Maid took the glass
axe that the giant had given Edgar on the second
day, and threw it behind her with magic spells.
And a huge glass mountain rose behind them, so
that the giant had to stop and split his way through
the glass mountain.

Edgar and the Master-Maid rode on at full speed,
but once again they heard Dapplegrim trampling
behind them, and the Master-Maid took the flask
of water from her side and cast it down back of her,
and out of it gushed a huge stream.

When the giant came up to the stream and tried

154

Europa s Fairy Book

to make Dapplegrim swim through it he would not;
and then he lay down on the bank of the stream and
commenced to drink up as much of it as he could.

The Giant Tries to Drink the Stream

And he drank and he drank and he drank, till at
last he swallowed so much that he burst; and that
was the end of the giant.

Meanwhile Edgar and the Master-Maid had
ridden on fast and furious till they came near
where the palace of the King, Edgar's father, could
be seen in the far distance. And Edgar said :

"Let me go on first and tell my father and

The Master-Maid 155

mother all that you have done for me, and they
will welcome you as their daughter. "

The Master-Maid shook her head sadly and
said:

"Do as you will, but beware lest any one kiss
you before you see me again/*

"I want no kisses from any one but you," said
Prince Edgar, and leaving her in a hut by the
roadside he went on to greet the King and Queen.

When he got to the palace gate everybody was
astonished to see him, as they had all thought he
had been destroyed by the giant. And when they
took him to the Queen, his mother, she rushed to
him and kissed him before he could say nay.

No sooner had his mother kissed him than all
memory of the Master-Maid disappeared from his
mind. And when he told his mother and his father
what he had done in the giant's castle and how
he had escaped, he said nothing of the help given
him by the Master-Maid.

Soon afterwards the King and the Queen ar-
ranged for the marriage of Prince Edgar with a
great Princess from a neighbouring country. And
she was brought home with great pomp and cere-
mony to the King's palace. And one day after her
marriage, when she was out, she passed by the
hut in which the Master-Maid was dwelling.

Now the Master-Maid had put on that day a
beautiful dress of rich silk, and when the Prince's
wife saw it she went to the Master-Maid and said:

156 Europa's Fairy Book

"I should like that dress. Will you not sell it
to me?'*

"Yes," said the Master-Maid, "but at a price
you are not likely to give. "

"What do you want for it?" said the Princess.
. "I want to spend one night in the room of your
bridegroom, Prince Edgar."

At first the Princess would not think of such a
thing; but after thinking the matter over she
thought of a plan, and said :

"Well, you shall have your wish, " and took away
with her the silken dress.

But at night, when the Master-Maid came to the
palace and claimed her promise, the Princess put
a sleep-giving drug in Edgar's cup.

When the Master-Maid came into Edgar's room
she bent over his bed and cried :

"I cleaned the byre for thee,
I swung the axe for thee.
And now thou'lt not speak to me. "

But still Edgar slept on, and in the morning the
Master-Maid had to leave without speaking to
him.

Next day, when the Princess went out to see
what the Master-Maid had been doing, she found
her dressed in a rich silver dress, and said to her:

"Will you sell that dress to me?"

And the Master-Maid said, "Yes, at a price."

The Master- Maid 157

Then the Princess said, *'What price?''
"One night in Edgar's room," repHed the
Master-Maid.

The Princess knew what had happened the night
before, so she agreed to let the Master-Maid pass
still another night with her bridegroom. But all
happened as before; and when the Master-Maid
came into the room she bent over Edgar, lying upon
the bed, and called out:

"I gave my bones for thee,
I shared the apples for thee,
And yet thou'lt not speak to me";

and had to leave him as before, without his waking

up-

But this time Prince Edgar had heard something
of what she said in his sleep. And when he woke
up he asked his chamberlain what had happened
during the night. And he told the Prince that for
two nights running a maiden had been in his room
and sung to him, but he had not answered.

Next day the Princess sought out the Master-
Maid as before. And this time she was dressed in
a dress of shining gold ; and for that the Princess
agreed to let her spend one more night in the
Prince's room.

But this time the Prince, guessing what had
happened, threw away the wine-cup, in which the
Princess had placed the sleeping draught, and lay

ijjt Europa s Fairy Book

awake on his bed when the Master-Maid came in.
She bent over him and cried:

"I grew the forest for thee,
I made the glass mount for thee,
For thee a stream flowed from my magic flask,
And yet thou'lt not wake and speak to me."

But this time Prince Edgar rose up in bed and
recognized the Master-Maid, and called in his
father and his mother and told them all that had
happened, which had now come back to him.

So the Princess was sent back to her home, and
Edgar married the Master-Maid and lived happy
ever afterwards.

Th» Viiitor

A VISITOR FROM PARADISE

THERE was once a woman, good but simple,
who had been twice married. One day
when her husband was in the field — of
course that was her second husband, you know —
a weary tramp came trudging by her door and
asked for a drink of water. When she gave it to

159

i6o Europa's Fairy Book

him, being rather a gossip, she asked where he
came from.

" From Paris, " said the man.

The woman was a httle bit deaf, and thought
the man said from Paradise.

"From Paradise! Did you meet there my poor
dear husband. Lord rest his soul.^"

"What was his name?" asked the man.

"Why, John Goody, of course," said the woman.
"Did you know him in Paradise .f^"

"What, John Goody!" said the man. "Him
and me was as thick as thieves."

"Does he want for anything?" said the woman.
" I suppose up in Paradise you get all you want."

"All we want I Why, look at me, " said the man
pointing to his rags and tatters. "They treat
some of us right shabby up there."

"Dear me, that's bad. Are you likely to go
back?"

"Go back to Paradise, marm; I should say!
We have to be in every night at ten."

"Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind taking back
some things for my poor old John," said the
woman.

"In course, marm, delighted to help my old
chum John."

So the woman went indoors and got a big pile of
clothes and a long pipe and three bottles of beer,
and a beer jug, and gave them to the man.

"But," he said, "please marm, I can't carry all

A Visitor from Paradise 161

these by my own self. Ain't you got a horse or a
donkey that I can take along with me to carry
them? ril bring them back tomorrow."

Then the woman said, "There's our old Dobbin
in the stable; I can't lend you mare Juniper cos
my husband's ploughing with her just now."

"Ah, well, Dobbin'll do as its only till tomorrow."

So the woman got out Dobbin and saddled him,
and the man took the clothes and the beer and the
pipe and rode off with them.

Shortly afterwards her husband came home
and said,

"What's become of Dobbin? He's not in the
stable."

So his wife told him all that had happened.
And he said,

" I don't like that. How do we know that he is
going to Paradise? And how do we know that
he'll bring Dobbin back tomorrow? I'll saddle
Juniper and get the things back. Which way did
he go?"

So he saddled Juniper and rode after the man,
who saw him coming afar off and guessed what had
happened. So he got off from Dobbin and drove
him into a clump of trees near the roadside, and
then went and laid down on his back and looked
up to the sky.

When the farmer came up to him he got down
from Juniper and said, "What are you doing
there?'^

i6j Europa's Fairy Book

"Oh, such a funny thing," said the man; "a
fellow came along here on a horse with some
clothes and things, and when he got to the top of
the hill here he simply gave a shout and the horse
went right up into the sky; and I was watching
him when you came up."

"Oh, it's all right then," said the farmer. " He's
gone to Paradise, sure enough," and went back to
his wife.

Next day they waited, and they waited for the
man to bring back Dobbin; but he didn't come
that day nor the next day, nor the next. So the
farmer said to his wife,

**My dear, we've been done. But I'll find that
man if I have to trudge through the whole king-
dom. And you must come with me, as you know
him."

''But what shall we do with the house .^" said
the wife. "You know there have been robbers
around here, and while we are away they'll come
and take my best chiny."

"Oh, that's all right," said the farmer. "He
who minds the door minds the house. So we'll
take the door with us and then they can't get in."

So he took the door off its hinges and put it on
his back and they went along to find the man from
Paradise. So they went along, and they went
along, and they went along till night came, and
they didn't know what to do for shelter. So the
man said,

A Visitor from Paradise

i«f

"That's a comfortable tree there; let us roost
in the branches like the birds." So they took the

Up the Treo

door up with them and laid down to sleep on it as
comfortable, as comfortable can be.

Now it happened that a band of robbers had
just broken into a castle near by and taken out a
great lot of plunder; and they came under the
very tree to divide it. And when they began to

i64 Europa's Fairy Book

settle how much each should have they began to
quarrel and woke up the farmer and his wife.
They were so frightened when they heard the
robbers underneath them that they tried to get up
farther into the tree, and in doing so let the door
fall down right on the robbers' heads.

"The heavens are falling," cried the robbers,
who were so frightened that they all rushed away.
And the farmer and his wife came down from the
tree and collected all the booty and went home
and lived happy ever afterwards.

It was and it was not.

The Snake

INSIDE AGAIN

A MAN was walking through the forest one
day when he saw a funny black thing like
a whip wriggling about under a big stone.
He was curious to know what it all meant. So he
lifted up the stone and found there a huge black
snake.

"That's well," said the snake. "I have been
trying to get out for two days, and, Oh, how
hungry I am. I must have something to eat, and
there is nobody around, so I must eat you."

" But that wouldn't be fair, " said the man with
a trembling voice. " But for me you would never
have come out from under the stone."

165

1 66 Europa's Fairy Book

"I do not care for that," said the snake. "Self-
preservation is the first law of life; you ask any-
body if that isn't so."

"Any one will tell you," said the man, "that
gratitude is a person's first duty, and surely you
owe me thanks for saving your life."

" But you haven't saved my life, if I am to die
of hunger, " said the snake.

"Oh yes, I have," said the man; "all you have
to do is to wait till you find somethmg to eat."

"Meanwhile I shall die, and what's the use of
being saved!"

So they disputed and they disputed whether the
case was to be decided by the claims of gratitude
or the rights of self-preservation, till they did not
know what to do.

"I tell you what I'll do," said the snake, "I'll
let the first passer-by decide which is right."

"But I can't let my life depend upon the word
of the first comer."

"Well, we'll ask the first two that pass by."

"Perhaps they won't agree," said the man;
"what are we to do then.? We shall be as badly
off as we are now."

"Ah, well," said the snake, "let it be the first
three. In all law courts it takes three judges to
make a session. We'll follow the majority of votes."

So they waited till at last there came along an
old, old horse. And they put the case to him,
whether gratitude should ward off death.

Inside Again i6f

"I don't see why it should," said the horse.
"Here have I been slaving for my master for the
last fifteen years, till I am thoroughly worn out,
and only this morning I heard him say, 'Roger' —
that's my name — 'is no use to me any longer;
I shall have to send him to the knacker's and get
a few pence for his hide and his hoofs.' There's
gratitude for you."

So the horse's vote was in favour of the snake.
And they waited till at last an old hound passed
by limping on three legs, half blind with scarcely
any teeth. So they put the case to him.

"Look at me," said he; "I have slaved for my
master for ten years, and this very day he has
kicked me out of his house because I am no use to
him any longer, and he grudged me a few bones to
eat. So far as I can see nobody acts from gratitude."

"Well," said the snake, "there's two votes for
me. What's the use of waiting for the third ? he's
sure to decide in my favour, and if he doesn't it's
two to one. Come here and I'll eat you!"

"No, no," said the man, "a bargain's a bargain;
perhaps the third judge will be able to convince
the other two and my life will be saved."

So they waited and they waited, till at last a
fox came trotting along; and they stopped him
and explained to him both sides of the case. He
sat up and scratched his left ear with his hind paw,
and after a while he beckons the man to come near
him. And when he did so the fox whispered,

i68 Europa's Fairy Book

" What will you give me if I get you out of this ?"

The man whispered back, "A pair of fat
chickens."

"Well," said the fox, "if I am to decide this
case I must clearly understand the situation.
Let me see ! If I comprehend aright, the man was
lying under the stone and the snake "

"No, no," cried out the horse and the hound and
the snake. "It was the other way."

"Ah, ha, I see! The stone was rolling down and
the man sat on it, and then "

"Oh, how stupid you are," they all cried; "it
wasn't that way at all."

"Dear me, you are quite right. I am very
stupid, but, really, you haven't explained the case
quite clearly to me."

"I'll show you," said the snake, impatient from
his long hunger; and he twisted himself again under
the stone and wriggled his tail till at last the stone
settled down upon him and he couldn't move out.
"That's the way it was."

"And that's the way it will be," said the fox,
and, taking the man's arm, he walked off, followed
by the horse and the hound. "And now for my
chickens."

"I'll go and get them for you," said the man,
and went up to his house, which was near, and told
his wife all about it.

"But," she said, "why waste a pair of chickens
on a foxy old fox! I know what I'll do."

Inside Again 169

So she went into the back yard and unloosed
the dog and put it into a meal-bag and gave it to
the man, who took it down and gave it to the fox,
who trotted ofiF with it to his den.

But when he opened the bag out sprung the dog
and gobbled him all up.

There's gratitude for you.

(

>«■

^^^^

'•^"^ ^' ■// ! t '^^illiMr ^

t— SP

r//^/^ / ^ i ^^

The Three Ravens

JOHN THE TRUE

THERE was once a king who had long been
unmarried. Now one day, going through
his palace, he came to a room that he had
never opened before. So he sent for the key and
entered it, and opposite the door was the picture of
a most beautiful princess with skin white as snow
and cheeks red as blood and hair black as ebony.
No sooner had he seen this picture than he fell in
love with it and asked who she was.

His chamberlain said, "That is the Princess of
the Golden Horde, with which your Majesty's

kingdom has been at war these last twenty years.

170

John the True 171

Only three years ago, when your Majesty's father
was aHve, there was some talk of peace and of
betrothing you to her, and that was when her
portrait was sent here. But now the two kingdoms
are at war and it does not seem that peace will ever
come."

But though there was no hope of marrying her
the King could not help but think of the Princess
of the Golden Horde, and thought and thought
till he became quite pale and sick with love for her.
Now he had a faithful servant, the son of his own
nurse, and thus his foster-brother, and he was so
devoted to the King that everybody called him
John the True.

When John the True saw his foster-brother
pining away he went to him and said :

"What ails thee. Oh sire.?" for he alone had the
right of calling the King " thou. "

Then said the King to John the True:

"Come and I will show thee, John." And he
took him to the closed chamber and showed him
the portrait and told him how he felt towards the
Princess of the Golden Horde.

"Be of good cheer," said John the True; "I will
go and fetch her for thee."

"How can that be.?" said the King; "we are at
war with the Golden Horde, and they would never
give her to be my bride."

"Leave that to me," said John the True; "give
me only a ship full of merchandise and put in it a

172 Europa's Fairy Book

complete set of furniture made all of gold, and see
if I do not bring the Princess back to thee."

So the King did all that John the True demanded.
And he sailed away with the ship and its mer-
chandise to the country of the Golden Horde.
And when he came there to the chief port he did
not declare from what country he was but sent up,
as tribute to the King of the Golden Horde, a
beautiful chair all made of gold.

Now when the King saw this he became curious
about this merchant and his wares, and came down
with his Queen and the Princess to view the rarities.
And when he saw the set of furniture all made of
gold he asked John the True what its price was.

But John said it was not for sale, but that he
kept it to make gifts of tribute to the kings whose
realm he was visiting.

But the Princess had set her heart upon one
dressing-table all of gold, with crystal mirrors and
lovely fittings, and asked John if he could not sell it
to her.

But John said, "No, that is kept for a special
purpose, which I am not allowed to tell."

This aroused the curiosity of the Princess, and
later on towards the evening she came down with
only one maid to see if she could not persuade John
to let her have the dressing-table.

When she came on board John went to the cap-
tain and told him to set sail as soon as the Princess
went down into the cabin. And when she came

John the True 173

there he began telling her a long story, how that his
master the King had sent him to visit all the king-
doms of the earth, and that this dressing-table was
intended for the most beautiful princess whom he
should come across in his travels.

And then the Princess wanted to know whether
he would have to finish his travels before giving
the table, and what the King expected from the
Princess.

John told her that everything was left to him and
that, when he found a princess with skin as white
as snow, and cheeks as red as blood, and hair as
black as ebony, he was to present the table to her.

Then the Princess looked in the mirror and said :

"Have I not skin as white as snow, and cheeks
as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony? Then
give me the table."

But just then she began to feel the m-Otion of
the ship and knew that it was sailing away, and
commenced to shriek and cry. But John told her
all that had happened, and how that he had come
only for her, and that his foster-brother the King
was dying for love of her, and could not come
himself because the two countries were at war. So
at last the Princess became content, and they sailed
on and on towards the country of John the True.

As they were nearing land John was sitting in
the prow, and the Princess was reclining on a
couch on deck, and three black ravens were flying
about the mast of the vessel. Now John, being the

174 Europa's Fairy Book

son of a huntsman, knew the language of birds;
and he Hstened to what they said, and this was it :

"Caw, caw!" said the first raven. "There sits
the Princess of the Golden Horde, thinking that
she will marry John's master the King. But I
know something which will prevent that.'*

"What is that.f"' asked the second raven.

"Why," said the first, "when the Princess lands
and the King meets her they will bring out to him a
bay horse richly caparisoned, with a pillion for the
Princess. And if the King takes her with him on
the horse he will run away with them and dash
them both to pieces. Caw, caw!"

"But is there no remedy for that.f^" said the
third raven.

"Only if some one cuts off the head of the horse,
or tells the King; but woe unto him if he does that,
for as soon as he has told he will become marble
up to his knees. Caw, caw!"

"Even if he escapes that," said the second raven,
"the King would never marry the Princess, for at
the wedding feast wine will be presented to him,
in a glass goblet, and at the first drop of it he
drinks he will fall down dead. Caw, caw!"

"But is there nothing to remedy that?" asked
the first raven.

"Only if some one dashes the glass from his
hand, or tells of the danger; but if he tells he will
become marble up to his waist. Caw, caw!"

"Caw, caw!" said the third raven. "There is

John the True 175

still another danger. On the wedding night a
dreadful dragon will creep into the bridal chamber
and kill both King and Princess. And there is no
remedy against that unless some one drives off the
dragon or tells of the danger. But if he tells he
will become marble from head to foot. Caw, caw!"

When John the True heard all this he made up
his mind he would save his brother the King with-
out telling him of the dangers that threatened him.
And when they neared the shore he caused a
trumpet to be sounded three times, which was the
signal agreed upon between himself and the King,
that he had succeeded in bringing back the Princess
of the Golden Horde.

So the King came quickly down to the ship in all
his glory and received with joy the Princess, and
thanked John the True for his faithful service.

When it came time for the King to lead the
Princess to his palace, some one brought forth a
noble bay horse richly caparisoned and with a
pillion at the back of the saddle for the Princess to
ride on. And just as the King gave her his hand
and was about to mount the horse, John the True
drew his sword and cut off the head of the bay horse.

"Treason, treason!" cried the courtiers. "John
the True has drawn his sword in the King's
presence."

But the King said, "What John the True does is
done for me. Let a coach be brought and we will
return to the palace."

176 Europa's Fairy Book

So the King and the Princess and John the True
went to the palace, and preparations were made
for a grand wedding. And on the day of the
wedding there was a great banquet held, and at the
beginning a glass of wine was brought forth and
presented to the King, and just as he was lifting
it to his lips John the True, who stood behind the
King's throne, rushed forward and dashed the
goblet to the ground.

"Treason, treason!" cried the courtiers. "John
the True is mad."

"Nay, nay," said the King; "what John the True
does is for our good. Wherefore did'st thou do that,
John.?"

"That I must not say," said John the True.

"Well, well," said the King; "doubtless thou
hadst thy reasons; let the banquet proceed."

On the night of the wedding John the True took
his place with drawn sword before the bridal
chamber, and watched and watched and watched.
Towards midnight he heard a rustling in the bridal
chamber and, rushing in, saw a winged dragon
coming through the window towards the King and
Princess. He dashed towards it and wounded it
with his sword, so that it flew out of the window,
dropping blood on the way.

But the noise that John the True had made
awakened the King and Queen, and they saw him
before them with sword dripping with blood. And
not recognizing him at first, the King called out for

John the True 177

his guard, who came in quickly and seized John
the True.

When the King saw who it was he asked John
if he had any explanation of his conduct, and
John said:

"That I may not say. "

"This is more than I can bear,'' said the King.
"Perhaps love has turned thy brain."

And turning to the captain of his guard, the
King said, "Let him be executed in the morning
in our presence. "

When the morning came everything was ready
for John's execution, when he stood forth and said
to the King:

"If your Majesty wills, I will explain my
conduct. ''

"So be it," said the King; "I trust thou wilt
prove that thou art indeed John the True. "

And John the True told the King and the Queen
and the courtiers all that had occurred and what
he had heard from the ravens, and how he had
saved the life of the King and the Queen by
wounding the dragon on the preceding night. But
as he told why he killed the horse his legs became
marble up to the knees. And when he explained
why he had dashed the poisoned wine-cup from
the King's hand, the marble came up to his waist.
And when he explained how he had turned the
dragon from the bridal chamber, his whole body
became marble from head to foot.

178 Europa's Fairy Book

Then the King knew what a faithful servant he
had in John the True ; and he bade his men to place
the marble body on a golden stand on which was
written, "This is John the True who gave his life
for his King." And whenever the soldiers and the
courtiers passed it they gave it a salute.

Now after a time there came to the Queen two
little twin boys, whom she loved better than all the
world. And they grew and they grew, till they
learned to speak. And every time they passed the
statue of John the True they would raise their little
hands and give it a salute, for the Queen, their
mother, had told them what John the True had
done for their father and her.

But one night the Queen dreamed that a voice
from Heaven said to her, '*John the True can live
again if the two Princes be slain for his sake and his
body smeared with their blood."

The Queen told this dream to the King, and
they were terrified at it, but thought it only a
dream. But twice again the same dream came to
the Queen on the following two nights; and then
she said to her husband the King,

*'John the True gave his life for us; I feel we
ought to give our children for him. "

The King at last agreed to the terrible sacrifice,
and the heads of the two Princes were cut off, and
the statue of John smeared with their blood, when
it came to life and John the True lived again.

But when he learned how he had been brought to

John the True

179

life again, he asked to have the bodies of the
Princes brought to his chamber, and, going to the
bridal chamber, scraped from the floor some of
the dragon's blood that had fallen there, and went
back into his chamber and closed the door.

Shortly after, the King and the Queen heard the
voices of their sons calling out for them; and when
the door was opened there they were alive again.

So the King and the Queen and the Princes
lived together in all joy, with their faithful servant
John the True.

The Wounded Dragon

The Witch

JOHNNIE AND GRIZZLE

THERE was once a poor farmer who had two
children named Johnnie and Grizzle. Now
things grew worse and worse for the far-
mer till he could scarcely earn enough to eat and
drink. All his crops went to pay rent and taxes.
So one night he said to his wife,
" Betty, my dear, I really do not know what to

i8o

Johnnie and Grizzle i8i

do; there is scarcely anything in the house to eat,
and in a few days we shall all be starving. What
I think of doing is to take the poor lad and lassie
into the forest and leave them there ; if somebody
finds them they will surely keep them alive, and
if nobody finds them they might as well die there
as here; I cannot see any other way; it is their lives
or ours; and if we die what can become of them?"

"No, no, father," said the farmer's wife; "wait
but a few days and perhaps something will turn
up."

"We have waited and have waited and things
are getting worse every day; if we wait much longer
we shall all be dead. No, I am determined on it;
tomorrow the children to the forest."

Now it happened that Johnnie was awake in the
next room and heard his father and his mother
talking. He said nothing but thought and thought
and thought ; and early next morning he went out
and picked a large number of bright-coloured
pebbles and put them in his pocket. After break-
fast, which consisted of bread and water, the
farmer said to Johnnie and Grizzle,

"Come, my dears, I am going to take you for a
walk," and with that he went with them into the
forest near-by.

Johnnie said nothing, but dropped one of his
pebbles at every turning, which would show him
the way back. When they got far into the forest
the farmer said to the children.

i82 Europa's Fairy Book

"My dears, I have to go and get something.
Stay here and don't go away, and I'll soon come
back. Give me a kiss, children, " and with that he
hurried away and went back home by another
road.

After a time Grizzle began to cry and said,

"Where's father? Where's father? We can't
get home. We can't get home."

But Johnnie said, "Never mind. Grizzle, I can
take you home; you just follow me."

So Johnnie looked out for the pebbles he had
dropped, and found them at each turn of the road,
and a little after midday got home and asked their
mother for their dinner.

"There's nothing in the house, children, but you
can go and get some water from the well and, please
God, we'll have bread in the morning."

When the farmer came home he was astonished
to find that the children had found their way home,
and could not imagine how they had done so.
But at night he said to his wife,

" Betty, my dear, I do not know how the children
came home; but that does not make any difference;
I cannot bear to see them starve before my eyes,
better that they should starve in the forest. I will
take them there again tomorrow."

Johnnie heard all this and crept downstairs and
put some more pebbles into his pocket; and though
the farmer took them this time further into the
forest the same thing occurred as the day before.

Johnnie and Grizzle 183

But this time Grizzle said to her mother and
father,

"Johnnie did such a funny thing; whenever we
turned a new road he dropped pebbles. Wasn't
that funny? And when we came back he looked
for the pebbles, and there they were ; they had not
moved."

Then the farmer knew how he had been done,
and as evening came on he locked all the doors so
that Johnnie could not get out to get any pebbles.
In the morning he gave them a hunk of bread as
before for their breakfast and told them he was
going to take them into the nice forest again.
Grizzle ate her bread, but Johnnie put his into
his pocket, and when they got inside the forest
at every turning he dropped a few crumbs of his
bread. When his father left them he tried to
trace his way back by means of these crumbs.
But, alas, and alackaday! The little birds had
seen the crumbs and eaten them all up, and when
Johnnie went to search for them they had all
disappeared.

So they wandered and they wandered, more
and more hungry all the time, till they came to a
glade in which there was a funny little house; and
what do you think it was made of? The door was
made of butter-scotch, the windows of sugar candy,
the bricks were all chocolate creams, the pillars
of lollypops, and the roof of gingerbread.

No sooner had the children seen this funny little

i84 Europa's Fairy Book

house than they rushed up to it and commenced
to pick pieces off the door, and take out some of
the bricks, while Johnnie cHmbed on Grizzle's
back, and tore off some of the roof (what was that
made of?). Just as they were eating all this the
door opened and a little old woman, with red eyes,
came out and said,

"Naughty, naughty children to break up my
house like that. Why didn't you knock at the
door and ask to have something, and I would
gladly give it to you?"

"Please ma'am," said Johnnie, "I will ask for
something; I am so, so hungry, or else I wouldn't
have hurt your pretty roof."

"Come inside my house," said the old woman,
and let them come into her parlour. And that was
made all of candies, the chairs and table of maple-
sugar, and the couch of cocoanut. But as soon
as the old woman got them inside her door she
seized hold of Johnnie and took him through the
kitchen and put him in a dark cubby-hole, and
left him there with the door locked.

Now this old woman was a witch, who looked
out for little children, whom she fattened up and
ate. So she went back to Grizzle, and said,

"You shall be my little servant and do my work
for me, and, as for that brother of yours, he'll
make a fine meal when he's fattened up."

So this witch kept Johnnie and Grizzle with
her, making Grizzle do all the housework, and

Johnnie and Grizzle 185

every morning she went to the cubby-hole in
which she kept Johnnie and gave him a good
breakfast, and later in the day a good dinner, and
at night a good supper; but after she gave him
his supper she would say to him,

^*Put out your forefinger," and when he put it
out the old witch, who was nearly blind, felt it and
muttered,

"Not fat enough yet!"

After a while Johnnie felt he was getting real
fat and was afraid the witch would eat him up.
So he searched about till he found a stick about the
size of his finger, and when the old witch asked
him to put out his finger he put out the stick, and
she said,

" Goodness gracious me, the boy is as thin as a
lath! I must feed him up more."

So she gave him more and more food, and every
day he put out the stick till at last one day he got
careless, and when she took the stick it fell out of
his hand, and she felt what it was. So she flew
into a terrible rage and called out,

"Grizzle, Grizzle, make the oven hot. Thi«
lad is fat enough for Christmas."

Poor Grizzle did not know what to do, but she
had to obey the witch. So she piled the wood on
under the oven and set it alight. And after a
while the old witch said to her,

"Grizzle, Grizzle, is the oven hot?"

And Grizzle said, "I don't know, mum."

1 86 Europa^s Fairy Book

And when the witch asked her again whether
it was hot enough, Grizzle said,

"I do not know how hot an oven ought to be."

"Get away, get away,** said the old witch; "I
know, let me see." And she poked her old head
into the oven. Then Grizzle pushed her right
into the oven and closed the door and rushed
out into the back yard and let Johnnie out of
the cubby-hole.

Then Johnnie and Grizzle ran away towards
the setting sun where they knew their own house
was, till at last they came to a broad stream too
deep for them to wade. But just at that moment
they looked back, and what do you think they saw?
The old witch, by some means or other, had got
out of the oven and was rushing after them. What
were they to do.f* What were they to do.^

Suddenly Grizzle saw a fine big duck swimming
towards them, and she called out:

"Duck, duck, come to me,
Johnnie and Grizzle depend upon thee;
Take Johnnie and Grizzle on thy back,
Or else they'll be eaten — "

And the duck said,

"Quack! Quack!"

Then the duck came up to the bank, and Johnnie
and Grizzle went into the water and, by resting

Johnnie and Grizzle

187

their hands on the duck's back, swam across the
stream just as the old witch came up.

At first she tried to make the duck come over
and carry her, but the duck said, "Quack! Quack!"
and shook its head.

Then she lay down and commenced swallowing
up the stream, so that it should run dry and she
could get across. She drank, and she drank, and
she drank, and she drank, till she drank so much
that she burst!

So Johnnie and Grizzle ran back home, and
when they got there they found that their father
the farmer had earned a lot of money and had been
searching and searching for them over the forest,
and was mighty glad to get back Johnnie and
Grizzle again.

The Duck

THE CLEVER LASS

NOW there was once a farmer who had but one
daughter of whom he was very proud
because she was so clever. So whenever
he was in any difficulty he would go to her and ask
her what he should do. It happened that he had a
dispute with one of his neighbours, and the matter
came before the King, and he, after hearing from
both of them, did not know how to decide and
said :

"You both seem to be right and you both seem
to be wrong, and I do not know how to decide; so
I will leave it to yourselves in this way: whichever
of you can answer best the three questions I am
about to ask shall win this trial. What is the most
beautiful thing.? What is the strongest thing.?*
and. What is the richest thing ? Now go home and
think over your answers and bring them to me to-
morrow morning."

So the farmer went home and told his daughter
what had happened, and she told him what to
answer next day.

So when the matter came up for trial before the
King he asked first the farmer's neighbour,

1 88

The Clever Lass 189

**What is the most beautiful thing?'*

And he answered, "My wife."

Then he asked him, "What is the strongest
thing?"

"My ox."

"And what is the richest?"

And he answered, "Myself."

Then he turned to the farmer and asked him,

"What is the most beautiful thing.?"

And the farmer answered, "Spring."

Then he asked him, "What is the strongest?"

"The earth."

Then he asked, "What is the richest thing?"

He answered, "The harvest."

Then the King decided that the farmer had
answered best, and gave judgment in his favour.
But he had noticed that the farmer had hesitated
in his answers and seemed to be trying to rem_ember
things. So he called him up to him and said,

"I fancy those arrows did not come from your
quiver. Who told you how to answer so cleverly?"

Then the farmer said, "Please your Majesty,
it was my daughter who is the cleverest girl in all
the world."

"Is that so.?" said the King. "I should like to
test that."

Shortly afterwards the King sent one of his
servants to the farmer's daughter with a round
cake and thirty small biscuits and a roast capon,
and told him to ask her whether the moon was full,

igo Europa s Fairy Book

and what day of the month it was, and whether
the rooster had crowed in the night. On the way
the servant ate half the cake and half of the biscuits
and hid the capon away for his supper. And when
he had delivered the rest to the Clever Girl and
told his message she gave this reply to be brought
back to the King:

"It is only half-moon and the 15th of the month
and the rooster has flown away to the mill; but
spare the pheasant for the sake of the partridge."

And when the servant had brought back this
message to the King, he cried out,

"You have eaten half the cake and fifteen of
the biscuits and didn't hand over the capon at
all."

Then the servant confessed that this was all
true, and the King said,

"I would have punished you severely but that
this Clever Girl begs me to forgive the pheasant,
by which she meant you, for the sak^ of the
partridge, by which she meant herself. So you
may go unpunished."

The King was so delighted with the cleverness of
the girl that he determined to marry her. But,
wishing to test her once more before doing so, he
sent her a message that she should come to him
clothed, yet unclothed, neither walk ng, nor driv-
ing, nor riding, neither in shadow nor in sun, and
with a gift which is no gift.

When the farmer's daughter received this mes-

The Clever Lass 191

sage she went near the King's palace, and having
undressed herself wrapped herself up in her long
hair, and then had herself placed in a net which was
attached to the tail of a horse. With one hand she
held a sieve over her head to shield herself from the
sun; and in the other she held a platter covered
with another platter.

Thus she came to the King neither clothed nor
unclothed, neither walking, nor riding, nor driving,
neither in sun nor in shadow.

Now when she was released from the net and a
mantle had been placed over her she handed the
platter to the King, who took the top platter off,
whereupon a little bird that had been between the
two platters flew away. This was the gift that
was no gift.

The King was so delighted at the way in which
the farmer's daughter had solved the riddle that
he immediately married her and made her his
Queen. And they lived very happily together
though no children came to them. The King
depended upon her for advice in all his affairs and
would often have her seated by him when he was
giving judgment in law matters.

Now it happened that one day at the end of all
the other cases there came two peasants, each of
whom claimed a foal that had been born in a stable
where they had both left their carts, one with a
horse and the other with a mare. The King was
tired with the day's pleadings, and without think-

192 Europa*s Fairy Book

ing and without consulting his Queen who sat by
his side, he said,

"Let the first man have it," who happened to be
the peasant whose cart was drawn by the horse.

Now the Queen was vexed that her husband
should have decided so unjustly, and when the
court was over she went to the other peasant and
told him how he could convince the King that he
had made a rash judgment. So the next day he
took a stool outside the King's window and
commenced fishing with a fishing-rod in the road.

The King looking out of his window saw this
and began to laugh and called out to the man,

"You won't find many fish on a dry road," to
which the peasant answered,

"As many as foals that come from a horse."

Then the King remembered his judgment of
yesterday and, calling the men before him, decided
that the foal should belong to the man who had the
mare and who had fished in front of his windows.
But he said to him as he dismissed them,

"That arrow never came from your quiver."

Then he went to his Queen in a towering rage
and said to her,

"How dare you interfere in my judgments.?"

And she said, "I did not like my dear husband
to do what was unjust." But the King said,

"Then you ought to have spoken to me, not
shamed me before my people. That is too much.
You shall go back to your father who is so proud of

The Clever Lass 193

you. And the only favour I can grant you will be
that you can take with you from the palace what-
ever you love best."

** Your Majesty's wish shall be my law/* said the
Queen, "but let us at least not part in anger. Let
me have my last dinner as Queen in your company.'*

When they dined together the Queen put a
sleeping potion in the King's cup, and when he fell
asleep she directed the servants to put him in the
carriage that was waiting to take her home, and
carried him into her bed. When he woke up next
morning he asked,

"Where am I, and why are you still with me?"

Then the Queen said, "You allowed me to take
with me that which I loved best in the palace, and
so I took you."

Then the King recognized the love his Queen
had for him, and brought her back to his palace,
and they lived together there forever afterwards.

THUMBKIN

A WOMAN was once stringing beans in her
kitchen, and she thought to herself:

"Oh, why have I not got a Httle baby
boy; if I had only one as big as one of these beans
or as big as my thumb I should be content. How
I would love it, and dress it, and talk to it."

As she was speaking thus to herself and finishing
off the beans, suddenly she thought they all turned
into little baby boys, jumping and writhing about.
She was so startled and afraid that she shook out
her apron, in which they all lay, into a big bowl
of water with which she was going to wash the
beans. And then she hid her head in her apron
so as not to see what happened; and after a while
she looked out from under her apron and looked at
the bowl, and there were all the little boys floating
and drowned, except one little boy at the top.
And she took pity on him and drew him out of the
bowl; then she showed him to her husband when
he came home.

"We have always wanted a boy," she said to
him, " even if it were not bigger than our thumbs,
and here we have him."

So they took him and dressed him up in a little

194

Thumbkin 195

doll's dress and made much of him; and he learnt
to talk, but he never grew any bigger than their
thumbs; and so they called him Thumbkin.

One day the man had to go down into the field,
and he said to his wife:

**My dear, I am going to get ready the horse
and cart, and then I am going down to the field
to reap, and just at eleven o'clock I want you to
drive the cart down for me."

"Isn't that just like a man.^" said his wife. "I
suppose you'll want your dinner at twelve, and
how do you expect me to get it ready if I have to
drive your horse and cart down to the field and
then have to trudge back on my ten toes and get
your dinner ready? What do you think I am
made of?"

"Well, it has to be done," said the man, "even
if dinner has to be late."

So they com_menced quarrelling, till Thumbkin
called out:

"Leave it to me, Father; leave it to me."

"Why, what can you do?" asked the man.

"Well," said Thumbkin, "if mother will only
put me in Dobbin's ear, I can guide him down to
the field as well as she could."

At first they laughed, but then they thought
they would try. So the man went off to the field,
and at eleven o'clock the woman put Thumbkin
into the horse's right ear; and he immediately
called out, "Gee!"

196 Europa s Fairy Book

And the horse began to move. And as it went
on towards the field Thumbkin kept calling out:

"Right! Left! Left! Right!" and so on till
they got near the field.

Now it happened that two men were coming
that way, and they saw a horse and cart coming to-
wards them, with nobody on it, and yet the horse
was picking his way and turning the corners just
as if somebody was guiding him. So they followed
the horse and cart till they got to the field, when
they saw the man take Thumbkin out of the horse's
ear and stroke him and thank him. They looked
at one another and said:

"That lad is a wonder; if we could exhibit him
we would make our fortunes."

So the men went up to the man and said:

*'Will you sell that lad.?"

But the man said:

"No, not for a fortune; he's the light of our life."

But Thumbkin, who was seated on the man's
shoulder, whispered to him:

"Sell me and Fll soon get back."

So the man after a time agreed to sell Thumbkin
for a great deal of money, and the men took him
away with them.

"How shall we carry him?" said they.

But Thumbkin called out:

" Put me on the rim of your hat and I shall be
able to see the country."

And that is what they did.

Thumbkin 197

After a time as it got dusk the men sat down
by the wayside to eat their supper. And the man
took ofif his hat and put it on the ground, when
Thumbkin jumped off and hid himself in the
crevice of a tree.

When they had finished their supper the men
looked about to find Thumbkin, but he was not
there. And after a while they had to give up the
search and go away without him.

When they had gone three robbers came and sat
down near the three where Thumbkin was and be-
gan to speak of their plans to rob the Squire's house.

"The only way,'' said one, "would be to break
down the door of the pantry which they always
lock at night."

"But," said another, "that'll make so much
noise it will wake up the whole house."

"Then one of us," said the first robber, "will
have to creep in through the window and unlock
the door."

"But the window is too small," said the third
robber; "none of us could get through it."

"But I can," called out Thumbkin.

"What is that.? Who was that?" called out
the robbers, who commenced thinking of running
away. And then Thumbkin called out again:

"Do not be afraid, I'll not hurt you, and I can
help you get into the Squire's pantry."

Then he came out of the hole in the tree, and the
robbers were surprised to see how small he was.

198 Europa's Fairy Book

So they took him up with them to the Squire's
house, and when they got there they Hfted him up
and put him through the window and told him to
look out for the silver.

"I've found it! I've found it!" he called out
at the top of his shrill voice.

"Not so loud; not so loud," said they.

"What shall I hand out first, the spoons or the
ladles .f*" he shouted out again.

But this time the butler heard him and came
down with his blunderbuss, and the robbers ran off.
So when the butler opened the door Thumbkin
crept out and went to the stable, and laid down to
sleep in a nice cozy bed of hay in the manger.

But in the morning the cows came into the
stable, and one of them walked up to the manger.
And what do you think she did? She swallowed
the hay with little Thumbkin in it, and took him
right down into her tummy.

Shortly afterwards the cows were driven out to
the milking place, and the milkmaid commenced
to milk the cow which had swallowed Thumbkin.
And when he heard the milk rattling into the pail
he called out:

"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"

The milkmaid was so startled to hear a voice
coming from the cow that she upset the milking
pail and rushed to her master, and said:

"The cow's bewitched! The cow's bewitched!
She's talking through her tummy."

Thumbkin 199

The farmer came and looked at the cow, and
when he heard Thumbkin speaking out of her
tummy he thought the milkmaid was quite right,
and gave orders for the cow to be slaughtered.

And when she was cut up by the butcher he
didn't want the paunch — that is the stomach —
so he threw it out into the yard. And a wolf
coming by swallowed the paunch and Thumbkin
with it.

When he found himself again in the wolfs
stomach he called out as before:

"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"

But the wolf said to him:

"What'U you do for me if I let you out?''

"I know a place where you can get as many
chickens as you like, and if you let me out I'll show
you the way."

"No, no, my fine master," said the wolf; "you
can tell me where it is, and if I find you are right
then I'll let you out."

So Thumbkin told him a way to his father's
farm, and guided him to a hole in the larder just
big enough for the wolf to get through. When he
got through there were two fine fat ducks and a
noble goose hung up ready for the Sunday dinner.
So Mr. Wolf set to work and ate the ducks and the
goose while Thumbkin kept calling out:

"Don't want any duck or geese. Let me out!
Let me out!"

And when the wolf would not he called out :

200 Europa's Fairy Book

"Father! Father! Mother! Mother !'*

And his father and mother heard him, and they
came rushing towards the larder. Then the wolf
tried to get through the hole he had come through
before, but he had eaten so much that he stuck
there, and the farmer and his wife came up and
killed him.

Then they began to cut the wolf open and
Thumbkin called out:

"Be careful! Be careful! Fm here, and you'll
cut me up." And he had to dodge the knife as it
was coming through the wolf.

But at last the paunch of the wolf was slit open,
and Thumbkin jumped out and went to his
mother. And she cleansed him and dressed him
in new clothes, and they sat down to supper as
happy as could be.

" Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all ? *'

SNOWWHITE

THERE was once a queen who had no children,
and it grieved her sorely. One winter's
afternoon she was sitting by the window
sewing when she pricked her finger, and three
drops of blood fell on the snow. Then she thought
to herself:

"Ah, what would I give to have a daughter with

skin as white as snow and cheeks as red as blood."

After a while a little daughter came to her with

201

202 Europa's Fairy Book

skin as white as snow and cheeks as red as blood.
So they called her Snowwhite.

But before Snowwhite had grown up, her mother,
the Queen, died and her father married again,
a most beautiful princess who was very vain of her
beauty and jealous of all women who might be
thought as beautiful as she was. And every morn-
ing she used to stand before her mirror and say:

" Mirror, mirror, on the wall.
Who is the fairest of us all?"

And the mirror always used to reply:

"Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
The greatest beauty is thine own."

But Snowwhite grew fairer and fairer every year,
till at last one day when the Queen in the morning
spoke to her mirror and said :

" Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?"

the mirror replied :

"Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own,"

Then the Queen grew terribly jealous of Snow-
white and thought and thought how she could get
rid of her, till at last she went to a hunter and

Snowwhite 203

engaged him for a large sum of money to take
Snowwhite out into the forest and there kill her
and bring back her heart.

But when the hunter had taken Snowwhite out
into the forest and thought to kill her, she was so
beautiful that his heart failed him, and he let her
go, telling her she must not, for his sake and for
her own, return to the King's palace. Then he
killed a deer and took back the heart to the Queen,
telling her that it was the heart of Snowwhite.

Snowwhite wandered on and on till she got
through the forest and came to a mountain hut
and knocked at the door, but she got no reply.
She was so tired that she lifted up the latch and
walked in, and there she saw three little beds and
three little chairs and three little cupboards all
ready for use. And she went up to the first bed
and lay down upon it, but it was so hard that
she couldn't rest; and then she went up to the
second bed and lay down upon that, but that was
so soft that she got too hot and couldn't go to
sleep. So she tried the third bed, but that was
neither too hard nor too soft, but suited her
exactly; and she fell asleep there.

In the evening the owners of the hut, who were
three little dwarfs who earned their living by dig-
ging coal in the hills, came back to their home.
And when they came in, after they had washed
themselves, they went to their beds, and the first
of them said :

204 Europa's Fairy Book

"Somebody has been sleeping in my bed!"

And then the second one said :

"And somebody's been sleeping in my bed!"

And the third one called out in a shrill voice,
for he was so excited :

" Somebody is sleeping in my bed, just look how
beautiful she is!"

So they waited till she woke up, and asked her
how she had come there, and she told them all that
the hunter had said to her about the Queen wanting
to slay her.

Then the dwarfs asked her if she would be
willing to stop with them and keep house for them;
and she said that she would be delighted.

Next morning the Queen went up as usual to
her mirror, and called out :

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?"

And the mirror answered as usual :

"Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own/*

And the Queen knew that Snowwhite had not
been slain. So she sent for the hunter and made
him confess that he had let Snowwhite go; and she
made him search about beyond the forest, till at
last he brought back word to her that Snowwhite

Snowwhite 205

was dwelling in a little hut on the hill with some
coal-miners.

Then the Queen dressed herself up like an old
woman, and, taking a poisoned comb with her,
went back the next day to the hut where Snowwhite
was living. Now the dwarfs had warned her
not to open the door to anybody lest evil might
befall her; and she found it very lonesome keeping
always within doors.

When the Queen, disguised as an old woman,
came to the door of the house she knocked upon it
with her stick, but Snowwhite called out from
within :

"Who is there .f^ Go away! I must not let
anybody come in."

"All right," answered the Queen. "If you can
come to the window we can have a little chat
there, and I can show you my wares."

So when Snowwhite came to the window the
Queen said:

"Oh, what beautiful black hair; you ought to
have a comb to bind it up;" and she showed her
the comb that she had brought with her.

But Snowwhite said:

" I have no money and cannot afford to buy
so fine a comb."

Then the Queen said:

"That is no matter; perhaps you have some-
thing golden that you can give me in exchange."

And Snowwhite thought of a golden ring that

906 Europa's Fairy Book

her father had given to her, and oflfcrcd to give it
for the comb. The Queen took it and gave Snow-
white the comb and bade her good-bye, and went
back to the palace.

Snowwhite lost no time in going to the mirror,
and binding up her hair and putting the comb into
it. But it had scarcely been in her hair a few
minutes when she fell down as if she were dead,
and all the blood left her cheeks, and she was
Snowwhite indeed.

When the dwarfs came home that evening
they were surprised to find that the table was not
spread for them, and looking about they soon
found Snowwhite lying upon the ground as if she
were dead. But one of them listened to her heart
and said : " She lives ! She lives ! "

And they began to consider what caused Snow-
white to fall into such a swoon. They soon found
the comb, and when they took it out Snowwhite
soon opened her eyes and became as lively as she
ever was before.

Next morning the Queen went to the mirror on
the wall and said to it:

" Mirror, mirror, on the wall
Who is the fairest of us all ?

Then the mirror said as before :

Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own.'

Snowwhite 207

Then the Queen knew that something had
happened to the comb and that Snowwhite was
still alive. So she dressed herself once more as an
old woman and took with her a poisoned ribbon
and went to the hut of the three dwarfs. And
when she got there she knocked at the door, but
Snowwhite called out:

"You cannot enter; I must not open the door.'*

Then, as before, the Queen called out in reply:

"Then come to the window, and you can see my
wares."

When Snowwhite came to the window the
Queen said:

"You are looking more beautiful than ever, but
how unbecomingly you arrange your hair. Did
you use that comb I gave you yesterday?"

"Yes, indeed," said Snowwhite, "and I fell
into a swoon because of it; I am afraid there is
something the matter with it."

"No, no, that cannot be," said the Queen;
"there must be some mistake. But if you cannot
use the comb I will let you have this pretty ribbon
instead," and she held out the poisoned ribbon.
Snowwhite took it, and after the old woman, as she
thought she was, had gone away, Snowwhite went
to the mirror and tied up her hair with the piece
of ribbon. But scarcely had she done so when she
fell to the ground lifeless and lay there as if she
were dead.

That evening the dwarfs came home and

2o8 Europa's Fairy Book

found Snowwhite lying on the ground as if dead,
but soon discovered the poisoned ribbon and un-
tied it; and almost as soon as this was done Snow-
white revived again.

Next morning the Queen went once more to the
mirror on the wall, and called out:

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?'*

to which the mirror replied, without any change:

''Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own/'

And the Queen recognized that once again her
plans had failed, and Snowwhite was still alive.
So she dressed herself once more and took with her
a poisoned apple, which was so arranged that
only one half of it was poisoned and the rest of it
was left as before. And when the Queen got to
the hut of the dwarfs she tried to open the door,
but Snowwhite called out:

"You can't come in!"

"Then I'll come to the window," said the
Queen.

"Ah, you are the old lady that came twice before;
you have not brought me good luck, each time
something has befallen me."

But the Queen said:

"I do not know how that can be; I only brought

Snowwhite 209

you something for your hair; perhaps you tied it
too tight. To show you that I have no ill-will
against you I have brought you this beautiful
apple."

"But my guardians," said Snowwhite, "told
me that I must take nothing more from you.''

"Oh, this is nothing to wear," said the Queen,
"this is something to eat. To show you that there
can be no harm in it I will take half of it myself
and you shall eat the other half."

So she cut the apple in two and gave the poisoned
half to Snowwhite. And the moment she had
swallowed the first bite of it she fell down dead.
Then the Queen slunk away and went back to the
palace and went at once to her chamber and
addressed the mirror on the wall:

" Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?"

And this time the mirror answered, as it used
to do:

"Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
The greatest beauty is thine own.'*

Then the Queen knew that Snowwhite was dead
at last, and that she was without a rival in beauty.

When the dwarfs came home that night they
found Snowwhite lying upon the ground quite
dead, and could not find out what had happened

210 Europa's Fairy Book

or how they could cure her. But, though she
seemed dead, Snowwhite kept her beautiful white
skin and seemed more like a statue than a dead
person. So the dwarfs had a glass coffer made,
and put Snowwhite in and locked it up. And she
remained there for days and days without changing
the slightest, looking oh, so beautiful under the
glass case.

Now a great prince of the neighbouring country
happened to be hunting near the hill of the dwarfs
and called at their hut to get a glass of water. And
when he came in he found nobody there but Snow-
white lying in her crystal coffer. And he fell at
once in love with her and sat by her side till the
dwarfs came home, and he asked them who she
was. Then they told him her history, and he
begged that he might carry the coffer away so
that he might always have her near him. At
first they would not do so. But he showed how
much he loved her, so that they at last yielded,
and he called for his men to carry the coffer home
to his palace.

And when the men commenced carrying the
coffer down the mountain they jolted it so much
that the piece of poisoned apple in Snowwhite's
throat fell out, and she revived and opened her
eyes and looked upon the Prince who was riding
by her side. Then he ordered the coffer to be
opened, and told her all that had happened. And
he took her home to his castle and married her.

Snowwhitc

211

After this happened the Queen once more came
to her room and spoke to the mirror on the wall
and said:

" Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?"

And the mirror this time said again :

"Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own.'*

And the Queen was so enraged because she had
not destroyed Snowwhite that she rushed to the
window and threw herself out of it and died on
the spot.

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Snowwhite and the Three Dwarfs

213

INTRODUCTION TO NOTES

EVER since the Brothers Grimm in 1812 made for the
first time a fairly complete collection of the folk-
tales of a definite local or national area in Europe,
the resemblance of many of these tales, not alone in isolated
incidents but in continuous plots, has struck inquirers into
these delightful little novels for children, as the Italians
call them {Novelline). Wilhelm Grimm, in the comparative
notes which he added to successive editions of the Mdhrchen
up to 1859, drew attention to many of these parallels and
especially emphasized the resemblances of different inci-
dents to similar ones in the Teutonic myths and sagas which
he and his brother were investigating. Indeed it may be
said that the very considerable amount of attention that
was paid to the collection of folk tales throughout Europe for
the half century between 1840 and 1890 was due to the
hope that they would throw some light upon the origins of
mythology. The stories and incidents common to all the
European field were thought likely to be original mytho-
poeic productions of the Indo-European peoples just in the
same manner as the common roots of the various Aryan
languages indicated their original linguistic store.

In 1864 J. G. von Hahn, Austrian Consul for Eastern
Greece, in the introduction to his collection of Greek and
Albanian folk tales, made the first attempt to bring together
in systematic form this common story-store of Europe and
gave an analysis of forty folk- tale and saga "formulae,**
which outlined the plots of the stories found scattered

215

2i6 Europa's Fairy Book

through the German, Greek, Italian, Servian, Roumanian,
Lithuanian, and Indian myth and folk-tale areas. These
formulae were translated and adapted by the Rev. S. Baring-
Gould in an appendix to Henderson's Folk-Lore of the
Northern Counties of England (London, 1866), and he
expanded them into fifty-two formulae. Those were the
da3^s when Max Muller's solar and lunar explanations of
myths were in the ascendant and Mr. Baring-Gould applied
his views to the explanation of folk tales. I have myself
expanded Hahn's and Baring-Gould's formulae into a list
of seventy-two given in the English Folk-Lore Society's
Hand-Book of Folk-Lore, London, 1891 (repeated in the
second edition, 191 2).

Meanwhile the erudition of Theodor Benfey, in his in-
troduction to the Indian story book, Pantschatantra (Leip-
zig, 1 859) , had suggested another explanation of the similari-
ties of European folk- tales. For many of the incidents and
several of the complete tales Benfey showed Indian parallels,
and suggested that the stories had originated in India and
had been transferred by oral tradition to the different
countries of Europe. This entirely undermined the mytho-
logical theories of the Grimms and Max Muller and con-
siderably reduced the importance of folk tales as throwing
light upon the primitive psychology of the Aryan peoples.
Benfey 's researches were followed up by E. Cosquin who, in
the elaborate notes to his Contes de Lorraine, Paris, 1886,
largely increased the evidence both for the common Europ-
ean popularity of many of the tales and incidents as well as
for the parallels to be found in Oriental collections.

Still a third theory to account for the similarity of folk-
tale incidents was started by James A. Farrer and elaborated
by Andrew Lang in connection with the general movement
initiated by Sir Edward Tylor to explain mythology and
superstition by the similar processes of savage psychology
at definite stages of primitive culture. In introductions tg

Introduction to Notes 217

Perrault and Grimm and elsewhere, Andrew Lang pointed
out the similarity of some of the incidents of folk tales —
speaking of animals, transference of human feeling to
inanimate objects and the like — with the mental processes
of contemporary savages. He drew the conclusion that
the original composers of fairy tales were themselves in a
savage state of mind and, by inference, explained the
similarities found in folk tales as due to the similarity of the
states of minds. In a rather elaborate controversy on the
subject between Mr. Lang and myself, carried through the
transactions of the Folk-Lore Congress of 1891, the intro-
duction to Miss Roalfe Cox's "Cinderella," and in various
numbers of *' Folk-Lore, " I urged the improbability of this
explanation as applied to the plots of fairy tales. Similar
states of mind might account for similar incidents arising
in different areas independently, but not for whole series
of incidents artistically woven together to form a definite
plot which must, I contended, arise in a single artist mind.
The similarities in plot would thus be simply due to borrow-
ing from one nation to another, though incidents or series of
incidents might be inserted or omitted during the process.
Mr. Lang ultimately yielded this point and indeed insisted
that he had never denied the possibility of the transmission
of complete folk-tale formulae from one nation and language
to another.

During all this discussion as to the causes of the similarity
of folk-tale plots no attempt has been made to reconstitute
any of these formulae in their original shape. Inquirers have
been content to point out the parallelisms to be found in
the various folk- tale collections, and of course these parallel-
isms have bred and mustered with the growth of the
collections. In some cases the parallels have run into the
hundreds. (See ''Reynard and Bruin.") In only one case
have practically all the parallels been brought together in a
single volume by Miss Roalfe Cox on Cinderella (Folk-Lore

2i8 Europa's Fairy Book

Society Publication for 1893; see notes on "Cinder-Maid").

These variants of incidents obviously resemble the varies
lectiones of MSS. and naturally suggest the possibility of
getting what may be termed the original readings. In 1889
the following suggestion was made by Mr. (now Sir) James
G. Frazer in an essay on the ** Language of Animals," in
the ArchcBological Review, i., p. 84:

" In the case of authors who wrote before the invention of
printing, scholars are familiar with the process of comparing
the various MSS. of a single work in order from such a
comparison to reconstruct the archetype or original MS.,
from which the various existing MSS. are derived. Similarly
in Folk-Lore, by comparing the different versions of a single
tale, it may be possible to arrive, with tolerable certainty,
at the original story, of which the different versions are
more or less imperfect and incorrect representations. "

Independently of Sir James Frazer's suggestion, which I
have only recently come across, I have endeavoured in the
present book to carry it out as applied to a considerable
number of the common formulas of European folk-tales,
and I hope in a succeeding volume to complete the task and
thus give to the students of the folk-tale as close approach
as possible to the original form of the common folk- tales of
Europe as the materials at our disposal permit.

My procedure has been entirely similar to that of an
editor of a text. Having collected together all the variants,
I have reduced them to families of types and from these
families have conjectured the original concatenation of
incidents into plot. I have assumed that the original teller
of the tale was animated by the same artistic logic as
the contemporary writers of Contes (see notes on "Cinder-
Maid, " " Language of Animals "), and have thus occasionally
introduced an incident which seemed vital to the plot,
though it occurs only in some of the families of the variants.
My procedure can only be justified by the succesa of my

Introduction to Notes 219

versions and their internal coherence. As regards the actual
form of the narrative, this does not profess to be European
but follows the general style of the English fairy tale, of
which I have published two collections {English Fairy Tales,
1890; More English Fairy Tales, 1894).

In the following notes I have not wasted space on proving
the European character of the various tales by enumerating
the different variants, being content for the most part to
give references to special discussions of the story where the
requisite bibliography is given. With the more serious tales
I have rather concerned myself with trying to restore the
original formula and to establish its artistic coherence.
Though I have occasionally discussed an incident of primi-
tive character, I have not made a point of drawing attention
to savage parallels, nor again have I systematically given
references to the appearance of whole tales or separate
incidents in mediaeval literature or in the Indian collections.
For the time being I have concentrated myself on the task
of getting back as near as possible to the original form of the
fairy tales common to all Europe. Only when that has
been done satisfactorily can we begin to argue as to the
causes or origin of the separate items in these originals. It
must, of course, always be remembered that, outside this
common nucleus, each country or linguistic area has its own
story-store, which is equally deserving of special investiga-
tion by the serious student of the folk-tale. I have myself
dealt with some of these non-European or national folk-
tales for the EngHsh, Celtic and Indian areas and hope in
the near future to treat of other folk-tale districts, like the
French, the Scandinavian, the Teutonic or the Slavonian.

I had gone through three-quarters of the tales and notes
contained in the present book before I became acquainted
with the modestly named Anmerkungen zu Grimm's
Mahrchen, 2 vols., 1913-15, by J. Bolte and E. Polivka.
This is one of those works of colossal erudition of which

220 Europa's Fairy Book

German savants alone seem to have the secret. It sums up
the enormous amount of research that has been going on in
Europe for the last hundred years, on the parallelism and
provenance of the folk-tales of Europe, and in a measure
does for all the Grimm stories what Miss Roalfe Cox did for
Cinderella. Only two volumes have as yet appeared dealing
with the first 120 numbers of the Grimm collection in over
a thousand pages crammed with references and filled with
details as to variants. The book has obviously been planned
and worked out by Dr. Bolte, who had previously edited the
collected works of his chief predecessor, R. Koehler. Dr.
Polivka's contribution mainly consists in the collection and
collation of the Slavonic variants, which are here made ac-
cessible for the first time. I therefore refer to the volume
henceforth by Dr. Bolte's name. The book is indispensable
for the serious students of the folk-tale, and would have
saved me an immense amount of trouble if I had become
acquainted with it earlier.

In thirty-eight or nearly a third of the tales Dr. Bolte
gives a formula, or radicle, summing up the "common
form" of the story, and I am happy to find that in those
cases, which occur in the early part of the present volume,
my own formulas, agree with his, though of course for the
purposes of this book I have had to go into more detail.
Dr. Bolte has not as yet expounded any theory of the origin
of the Folk Tale, but, with true scientific caution, judges
each case on its merits. But his whole treatment assumes
the organic unity of each particular formula, and one can-
not conceive him regarding the similarities of the tales as
due to similar mental workings of the folk mind at a parti-
cular stage of social development.

Finally, I should perhaps explain that in my selection of
typical folk-tales for the present volume, I have included
not only those which could possibly be traced back to real
primitive times and mental conditions, like the "Cupid

Notes 221

and Psyche" formula, but others of more recent date and
composition, provided they have spread throughout Europe,
which is my criterion. For instance "Beauty and the
Beast" in its current shape was composed in the eighteenth
century, but has found its place in the story-store of Euro-
pean children. A couple, like "Androcles and the Lion"
and " Day Dreaming, " owe a similar spread to literary com-
munication even though in the latter case it is the popular
literature of the Arabian Nights, These must be regarded
as specimens only of a large class of stories that are found
among the folk and can be traced in the popular mediaeval
collections like Alfonsi's Disciplina-Clericalis or Jacques de
Vitry's Exempla, not to speak of the Fables of Bidpai or The
Seven Wise Masters of Rome. These form quite a class by
themselves and though they have come to be in many cases
Folk-Lore of European spread, they differ in quality from
the ordinary folk-tale which is characterized by its tendency
to variation as it passes from mouth to mouth. Still one
has to recognize that they are now European and take their
place among the folk and for that reason I have given a
couple of specimens of them, but of course my main atten-
tion has been directed to attempting to reconstruct the
original form of the true folk-tale from, the innumerable
variants now current among the folk.

L CINDER-MAID

Source. — Miss Roalfe Cox's volume on Cinderella,
published by the Folk-Lore Society (London: David Nutt,
1893), contains 130 abstracts and tabulations of the pure
Cinderella "formula," found in Finland, the Riviera,
Scotland, Italy, Armenia, Iceland, Norway and Sweden,
France, Greece, Germany, Spain, Calcutta, Ireland, Servia,
Poland, Russia, Denmark, Albania, Cyprus, Galicia
Lithuania, Catalonia, Portugal, Sicily, Hungary, Martinique,

222 Europa's Fairy Book

Holland, Bohemia, Bulgaria, and the Tyrol. Besides theea
there are 31 intermediate stories approximating to the
Cinderella type, from Russia, Asia Minor, Italy, Lorraine,
The Deccan, Poland, Hungary, Catalonia, Corsica, Fin-
land, Switzerland, and in Basque, Spain. The earliest
form in which the pure type occurs is in Basile's Pentamerone,
1634, and of the indeterminate type in Bona venture des
Periers Nouvelles Recreations, 1557, though the latter seems
more cognate to the Catskin formula.

In many of the variants there is an introductory series of
incidents in which the heroine, after the loss of her mother,
is set tasks by the envious step-mother and sisters, which
she is aided to perform by means of an animal helper, mainly
sheep or cow, which, in some of the versions, is clearly
identified with her mother either in a transformed or a
natural state. In these versions the magic dresses, for
example, are taken out of the ear of the cow or sheep!
These incidents however seem to me to be incongruous with
the rest of the story, which involves a monogamous society
with fairly fixed social grades and with the wearing of shoes
at least among the upper strata of society. They belong
rather to the type of story represented by the Grimm's
*'One eye, Two eyes, Three eyes"; and I have therefore
reserved them for my retelling of this formula. In a similar
way, in some of the Celtic versions, a long series of incidents
is inserted, clearly taken from the Sea Maiden story (see
Celtic Fairy Tales, xvii.).

The central incident of the Cinder-Maid formula is
clearly the Shoe Marriage Test, up to which everything
leads and upon which the mutilation incidents at the end
depends. The mutilation again impUes that the shoe in
question must have been of a hard or metallic substance
which could not be pressed out of shape. In the form
endeared to most European children of the upper classes
by Charles Perrault, the slipper is made of glass. It was

Notes 223

first suggested by Balzac that Perrault's panto ffles de verre
was due to his misunderstanding of the panto ffles de vair,
or fur (the word vair is still used to indicate this in heraldry) ,
which he had heard from his nurse or other folk-tale infor-
mant. But the step-sisters would not have been compelled
to hack their heels to get inside a fur slipper, and, from this
point of view, the glass shoe would be preferable. I have
had, however, to reject it because it occurs in only six of the
variants obviously derived directly, or indirectly, from
Perrault. The majority of the versions prefer gold (see
Miss Roalfe Cox's enumeration p. 342).

The Shoe Marriage Test again involves the previous
meetings of the high-born lover and the menial heroine,
transformed for the nonce by her dress into a dame of equal
standing. In some of the variants these meetings are in
church and not at a ball, royal or otherwise. But the Shoe
Marriage Test involves a highly desirable parti who can
practically command any wife he desires; this points to
some super-chief or king. I have, therefore, reserved the
church meetings for the Catskin type of story in which the
heroine is scullery-maid in the young lord's own household.
The obtaining of the dresses needed for the Royal Balls
involves some animal or supernatural aid (in Perrault it is,
of course, a fairy god-mother, unknown to the folk mind),
while the menial condition of the heroine is best explained in
the usual folk-tale manner by the envious step-mother or
sisters.

I have pointed out in English Fairy Tales (Note to
"Childe Rowland") that in most folk-tales of a romantic
type the mode of telling is by prose narrative interspersed
with rhyming formulae analogous to the cante-fable as in
**Aucassin and Nicolete." The Cinderella formula shows
clear traces of such rhymes, especially at the stages of the
narrative where incidents are repeated — the appeal for aid
at the mother's grave (Dress Rhyme), the avoidance of

224 Europa's Fairy Book

pursuit by the guards (Pursuit Rhyme), and the calling
attention of the Prince to the mutilated feet of the step-
sisters (Feet Rhyme).

Now some of these rhymes are found in similar and almost
identical shape in collections made in different coimtries
and different languages ; thus the Tree Rhyme is found in
the Archivio (Cox, p. 139) and in Ive (p. 265), in Bechstein
(p. 166), and in Grimm (p. 222), and in Hahn (p. 244), and
Moe (p. 322), each pair having practically identical rhymes.
Thus we have the existence of a Tree Rhyme, shown in Italy
and Germany, Greece and Denmark. So, too, the Feet
Rhyme is found in Scotland and Denmark, Germany and
Brittany. It is scarcely possible to doubt that all these
came from one original form of the story in which similar
rhymes occurred at the same stage of the narrative. The
possibility of such coincidences arising casually may fairly
be regarded as out of the question.

The subordinate incidents growing out of these essential
elements of the formula are of course more flexible, but the
Shoe Marriage Test itself involves some remarkable dresses
used to disguise the identity of the Cinder Maid at her
meetings with the hero, and this again involves, though not
so directly, a series of metal carriages. The Pursuit Rhyme
might easily give rise to the expedients of the Honey and Tar
Traps though these do not occur in very many of the vari-
ants. I have nevertheless inserted them for the sake of the
children if not for that of Folk-Lore Science.

Thus, from what may be called the artistic logic of the
Cinderella story, one is enabled to reconstitute its original
formula somewhat as follows:

Noble Father — Single Daughter — Mother's Death — Tree
Planted on Mother's Grave — Second Marriage — Two Ugly
Step-Sisters — Menial Heroine — Cinder-Maid — Prince Com-
ing of Age — Royal Ball — Step-Sisters Dressing — Tree
Rhyme — Bird Aid— -Magic Dress (blue heaven with stars)

Notes 225

— Copper Chariot from Tree — Copper Shoes — Caution
Rhyme — Ball Success — Pursuit Rhyme — Step-Sisters' Envy
— Second Ball — Magic Dress (golden brown earth with
flowers) — Silver Chariot — Silver Shoes — Honey trap — Pur-
suit Rhyme — Third Ball — Magic Dress (green &ea with
waves) — Golden Chariot — Golden Slippers — Tar Trap (lost
shoe) — Time Expired — Shoe Marriage Test — Mutilated
Foot — Feet Rhyme (bis) — Happy Marriage.

It is in accordance with the above formula that the
version presented in the preceding pages has been written,
the rhymes being, in most cases, compounded from the
various renderings given in Miss Cox's volume. I have only
added the Caution Rhyme about returning at midnight,
which is in prose in the versions; it would be incongruous
for the little bird to change her mode of diction so suddenly.
I can only hope I will not remind the reader of the guide's
description of Wallenstein's horse at Prague: "The head,
neck, forelegs, left hind-leg, and part of the back and tail
have been restored; all the rest is the original horse."

Parallels. — Miss Cox's volume contains all the parallels
of the Cinder-Maid formulae, to which reference has been
made above, and she has supplemented these by a few
additional ones in Folk-Lore for 1907, pages xviii ; 191-6. In
addition, she gives, in her notes, parallels to the different
incidents :

Note 4. (Help by dead parent.) Note 6. (Pursuit
checked by mist.) Note 7. (Magic tree on buried mother's
grave.) Note 8. (Substituted bride.) Note 26. (Sitting
on ashes.) Note 32. (Birds* language.) Note 38. (Tree
or rock treasures.) Note 48. (Lost shoe.) Note 50. (Iron
shoes,) and further notes on, Helpful, animals, p. 526. Fairy
god-mother, p. 527 and Talking birds, p. 527-9.

Of these the most important for our present purposes is
the 48th note dealing with the Lost Shoe, which we have
suggested is the central incident in the "original." In
15

276 Europa^s Fairy Book

Strabo xvii. and in ^lian xiii.-33, the myth of Rhodope
informs us that, while she was bathing, an eagle snatched
one of her sandals and dropped it in the lap of Psammetichus
who, struck by its neatness, had all Egypt search for its
owner, whom he then took to wife. In other Egyptian and
in Indian stories a severed lock of hair of the heroine leads
to the same result. Jacob Grimm drew attention to the old
German custom of using a shoe at betrothals, which was
placed on the bride's foot as a sign of her being subjected to
the groom's authority. King Rother had two shoes forged,
a silver and a golden one, which he fitted on the feet of his
bride, placed on his knee for that purpose. (See Deutsche
RechtS' Alter thumer, Gottingen, 1828, p. 155.) It is, of
course, possible that some reminiscence of the Rhodope
myth had spread among the folk to which the original teller
of Cinder-Maid belonged, and if the shoe betrothal was
confined to German custom this would seem to give a clue
to the original home of the Cinder-Maid.

Remarks. — The hazardous character of the reconstruction
process involved in the restoration of the original Cinder-
Maid formula cannot, of course, be exaggerated. It is even
more precarious than the similar procedure gone through
by scholars to restore the original reading of MSS. or by
the Higher Critics in recovering the J. narrative of Joseph or
the E. narrative of Lot. But I think I have shown that the
incidents selected by me are those which are necessitated
by the artistic logic of the Shoe Marriage Test which forms
the decisive incident in the Cinder-Maid formula. Where
the majority of the incidents contained in the reconstruction
occurred in the same order in far distant countries it is
practically impossible to imagine that the resemblance is
due to chance. Nor is it pertinent to point out that the
separate incidents occur equally widespread in connection
with other formulae, since it must not be forgotten that no

Notes 227

folk teller ever indulges in a single incident; he tells a tale
of many incidents. At the same time it is obvious that a
series of incidents may be transferred appropriately (or
inappropriately) from one tale to another; and this has
occurred with the Cinderella tales, as is shown abundantly
in Miss Cox's notes. It is thus quite eas}^ for a folk teller,
who is familiar with other stories, to introduce an analogous
set of incidents in the Cinder-Maid formula, just as Rob
Roy's son can introduce variations of an air when playing
the bagpipes; but the air remains the same throughout.

If the formula I have reconstructed for the Cinder-Maid
compares at all with the original, one ought to be able to
take any variant and see where the teller of it has diverged
from the original, inserted new incidents or adopted new
ones to local conditions. When one reads over Miss Cox's
variants one can often discern such additions or variations
introduced by the fancy of the teller. It is even possible
that in Cinderella itself the original folk artist who con-
ceived it made use of the Catskin formula to embellish the
details of the three meetings of the lovers ; even in my own
telling I fear there may be traces of the same process. There
is still doubt whether the bird in the hazel tree was meant to ■
represent the soul of the mother in whom, we may even say,
there is a double identification involved, as in the Golden
Bough. The tree rising from the mother's grave is obviously
connected spiritually with her ; the relation of the bird in the
tree to the Cinder-Maid also imphes a similar relation to the
mother. In my telling of the tale I have purposely avoided
emphasizing this, which might lead to inconvenient ques-
tionings from the little ones. In the scheme of the story the
guardian influence of the mother-soul is prominent through-
out but need not be too much emphasized for modern
children.

228 Europa's Fairy Book

II. ALL CHANGE

This nonsense story is found widely spread, especially in
Romance tongues, French, Italian, Provencal, and Por-
tuguese; but it is also found in Ireland (see Celtic Fairy
Tales) J Hanover, Transylvania, Esthonia, and Russia; so
that it has claims to be included in the fairy book of all
Europe. Cosquin, ii., 209-14, gives a number of Oriental
stories, Annamite, Kalmuk, Kaffir, which contain the inci-
dent of the girl in the bag, and Indian and Kabyle stories,
which go through the same exchanges as our story. In the
latter case it is an animal story in which the jackal has a
thorn picked out of his paws by an old woman, and gets an
egg out of her in exchange for the thorn which he has *' lost."
In this form the jackal helps considerably in the disappear-
ance of the successive exchanges. It is difficult to say
whether the European or the Indian form was the earlier.
The animal dramatis personce seem less incongruous and turn
the scale in favour of India.

HI. KING OF THE FISHES

This is practically the Perseus legend of antiquity, which
has been made the subject of an elaborate study by Mr. E.
Sidney Hartland, The Legend of Perseus y 3 vols., London,
1894-6. Mr. Hartland distinguishes four chains of inci-
dents in the story :

1. The Supernatural Birth.

2. The Life Token.

3. The Rescue of Andromeda.

4. The Medusa Witch.

Not all the variants, which are very numerous, running
from Ireland to Cambodia, include all these four incidents.
The Greek Perseus legend, for instance, has not the Life
Token. Cosquin, i., 67, knows of only eighteen which have

Notes 229

the full contingent, one in Brittany, two in Greece, one in

Sicily, foiir in Italy, one each — Basque, Spanish, Catalan,
Portuguese, Danish, and Swedish; two German; one
Lithuanian; and a Russian variant. There must be many
more in Bolte's notes to Grimm, 60. These are sufficient to
prove that the whole concatenation of incident is European,
though it is difficult to understand how the Medusa incident
got tacked on to the preceding three, with which it is very
loosely combined, the only point of connection being with the
Life Token. Strangely enough, in the ancient form of the
folk-tale, the Gorgon is an almost essential part of the story,
though the Life Token has disappeared, and the Super-
natural Birth only applies to the hero and not to his animal
companions. In the modern European folk-tales these
animal friends are rather supernumeraries and are occa-
sionally replaced by the formula of the Grateful Animals,
to whom the hero does some service during his wanderings,
in reward for which they rescue him from some extremity.
In some ancient variants of the Perseus legend there are
traces of the Substituted Champion in the form of Pentheus,
a former suitor of Andromeda, who had failed to meet the
dragon.

It would be impossible here to consider the folk-lore
analogies of the four chief incidents of the tale which have
occupied Mr. Hartland for three fairly large volumes to
develop, out of which have grown two more {Primitive
Paternity, London, 1 910). It is only necessary here to refer
to a few points in their relation to the tale itself. The
Supernatural Birth, which is also treated by M. Saintyves
(?) is found attributed to heroes among all nations; it is
only of significance in the story here in its bearing upon the
Life Token of the hero, which is connected with it. With
regard to the Life Token, Major Temple has a full analysis
in the notes to Wide Awake Stories, 1884, pp. 404-5, under
the title of the "Life Index," and is closely connected with

230 Europa*s Fairy Book

the idea of the External Soul, which Sir James G. Frazer has
studied in his Balder, London, 1913, pp. 95-152. The Fight
with the Dragon is celebrated outside folk-tales in the lives
of the saints (whence St. George, the titular saint of England,
gets his emblem) in the saga of Siegfried, and in the poetry
of Schiller, where it is made the subject of a moral apo-
logue. The Medusa-witch, who transforms into stone, or
destroys life in other ways, is quite a familiar figure in folk
tales, but is usually thwarted, as here, by some means of
cure.

The chief interest, however, of the " King of the Fishes,"
from a folk-tale point of view, is the remarkable similarity
of the later folk-tales with the Greek legend, from which
they are separated by so many centuries. The absence of
the Life Token in the Greek version and the comparative
insignificance of Medusa in the modern tales are sufficient
evidence that these latter are not directly derived from the
former. Yet even Mr. Hartland, who is a strong adherent
of the anthropological treatment of folk- tales, fully agrees
that this particular tale must have, at one time, been com-
posed in artistic unity, if not containing all the four chains
of incidents at least containing two of them {Legend of
Perseus, iii., 151). It should be added that Rassmann and
the Grimms connect the folk-tales with the Siegfried saga
(Bolte,i.,547, 555).

IV. SCISSORS

This familiar story is found as early as Pauli, "Schimpf
und Ernst," No. 595. It is frequent in Italy, especially in
Pitre's Selections. Koehler has references to the other
European versions in Blad^, p. 155. Crane, Italian Popu-
lar Tales, No. xcvi, has rendered one of Pitre's versions.

Notes »3i

V. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

This rather artificial tale has nevertheless spread through
all Europe. One finds it in Italy almost in the same form
as in the original French by the Princesse de Beaumont,
from whom it has got into the ordinary fairy books of Eng-
land, France and Germany. See Crane II., "Zelinda and
the Monster," pp. 7-1 1, with note 6, p. 324, which contain
a reference to Miss Stokes's India?i Fairy Tales, p. 292.
The Grimm story No. 108, *'Hans the Hedgehog," is more
primitive in character, and we get there the story how the
Beast obtained his terrible form. I have, however, rejected
this form of it as it is not so widespread as "Beauty and the
Beast," which is one of the few stories that we can trace,
spreading through Europe practically within our own time.
The artificiality of the leading motive is sufficient proof of
the late origin of the tale. But, after all, tradition does
not distinguish between primitive or later strata. Ralston
dealt with the whole formula from the sun-moon point of
view in Nineteenth Century, Dec, 1878.

VI. REYNARD AND BRUIN

The main incidents of ''Reynard the Fox" occur in folk-
tales throughout Europe, and it has often been discussed
whether the folk-tales were the foundation of the beast epic
or vice versa. Since, however, it has been proven that many
other incidents besides those used in the beast satire are
found among the folk, it is generally allowed nowadays that,
apart from a few .^sopic fables included in the satire, the
main incidents were derived from the folk. On this subject
see my introduction to "Reynard the Fox" in the Cranford
Series.

I have selected a number of the most characteristic of
these folk-tales relating to the former friendship and later
enmity of the Fox and the Bear, basing my compilation on

232 Europa's Fairy Book

the admirable monographs of Prof. K. Krohn of Helsing-
fors, "Mann und Fuchs," 1891, "Baer (Wolf) und Fuchs;
eine nordische Tiermarchenkette," in Journal de la Societe
Finno-Ougrienne, vi., Helsingissa, 1889, and "Die geo-
grafische Verbreitung einer nordischen in Finnland," in
Fennia, iv., 4. The latter monograph is accompanied by an
interesting map of Finland, showing the distribution of the
Scandinavian form of these stories, in which the Bear is the
opponent of the Fox, and the Slavonic form in which
the Wolf takes that position. As there is obviously a my-
thological tendency at the root of the stories, intending to
account for the shortness of the Bear's tail and the white tip
of the Fox's, it is clear that the Scandinavian form is the
more original.

I have tried to collect together in a logical narrative:

(a) Fox and Bear in partnership — (Top-ofiE, Half-gone,
All-gone) .

(b) Fox in fish cart.

(d) Fox and cream jug.

(e) Fox on Bear's back.

(f) Fox in briar bush.

(g) Man promises Fox two geese for freeing him from
Bear.

(h) Gives him two dogs.

(k) Fox and limbs; sacrifices tail.

In his article in Fennia, Prof. Krohn refers to no less than
708 variants of these different episodes, of which, however,
362 are from the enormous Finnish collections of folk lore
in possession of the Finnish Literary Society at Helsingfors.
The others include the majority of European folk-tale
collections with a goodly sprinkling of Asiatic, African and
American ones, the last, however, being confined to "Uncle
Remus," in which four out of the ten incidents occur in
isolated adventures of Brer Rabbit.

Notes 233

Many of the incidents occur separately in early litera-
ture; (g) (h) (k) for example, which form one sequence, are
found not alone in Renard but also in Alfonsi, 11 15, and
Waldis. (c) The iced bear's tail occurs in the Latin Ysen-
grimuSj of the twelfth century, in the Renart of the thir-
teenth, and, strangely enough, in the Hebrew Fox Fables
of Berachyah ha-Nakadan, whom I have identified with an
Oxford Jew late in the twelfth century. See my edition of
Caxton, Fables of Europe, i., p. 176. The fact that ice is re-
ferred to in the last case would seem to preclude an Indian
origin for this part of the collection.

It is not quite certain however that all the above inci-
dents were necessarily connected together originally. The
fish cart (b), and the iced bear's tail (c), are so closely allied
that they probably formed a unity in the original concep-
tion, though they are often found separately nowadays
among the folk. Bear and Fox in partnership (a), is found
elsewhere told of other animals, notably of the firm of Cat
and Mouse in Grimm No. 2. It is difficult to determine at
present whether stories relating to other animals, or even to
associations of men, have been applied by peasant narrators
to the general opposition of the sly versus the strong animal,
which they have dramatized in the beast satire of Reynard
and Bruin.

For a discussion of the whole subject, see A. Gerber,
Great Russian Animal Tales, Baltimore, 1891, who discusses
the incidents included in the above compilation in his notes
on V. (a), i. (b), ii. (c), iii. (d), iv. (e), iva. (f), ix. (g), x. (h),
xi. (k). It will be found that few of the other incidents
contained in Gerber can be traced throughout Europe except
when they are evidently derived from ^Esop.

VII. DANCING WATER

This story has the peculiarity, that it occurs in the Ara-
bian Nights as well as in so many European folk*tales.

234 Europa's Fairy Book

Hahn includes it under his formula No. 4, Genoveva (add
Gonz. 5, Dozon 2, Denton 238, Day xix.), H. Coote, in
Folk-Lore Record, vol. iii., part 2, in a paper on "Folk-
Lore, the Source of some of M. Galland's Tales," con-
tends that the "Tale of the Two Sisters who Envied
their Cadette," as well as Ali Baba, Aladdin, and Ahmed
and Paribanou, were derived from Arabic folk-lore rather
than from any Arabic manuscript version. We know now
that this is not true of Aladdin; and Zotenberg has traced
all these extra tales of Galland to the oral recitation of his
Christian dragoman Hanna. Coote finds the two envious
sisters to be an enormous favorite in Italy and Sicily, being
found in Pitre, Berti, Imbriani, Nerucci, and Comparetti.
The story of the girl is sometimes told separately as a
fiaba. Coote remarks that Leon Bruno is Greek (see Hahn,
p. 131 and F. L. R., i., 209), and is derived from the Arabian
Nights in the story of the princess of the islands of Wakwak ;
it also occurs in Straparola and Madame D'Aulnoy;
Brueyre has something similar in Brittany, p. 93; Kohler
in Melusine, pp. 213, 214, compares the Breton tale, given
there, with the Arabian Nights.

The boy with the moon or the sun on his forehead is a
frequent character in Indian folk-tales (see Temple, Wide
Awake Stories) . The possibility of Galland's version having
passed into the East from Europe does not seem to have
been considered till I suggested it in my Introduction to the
Arabian Nights, There is little doubt that Open Sesame
is European, and similarly this story occurs in Straparola
early enough to prevent any possibility of doubt on the
subject. The sequel of incidents appears to be as follows:

Overheard Boasting — Three Marriages — Substituted
Children — Quest Tasks — Life Token — Speech Taboo —
Brother's Failure — Sister's Success — Guilt Revelation —
Punishment of Envious Sisters. Some of these incidentSe
like the Life Token, occur in other collocations but are

' Notes 235

sufSciently appropriate here; Imbriani has three versions,
vi., vii., viii., with notes.

I have mostly followed Crane, pp. 17-25 (see also his
notes, pp. 325-6).

VIII. LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS

Source. — Sir J. G. Frazer, in ArchcBological Review, i.,
81-91, 1 61-8 1, who made an attempt, the first of its kind,
to restore the original archetype of the story of "The Boy
Who Became Pope," on the same principle as classical
scholars restore readings from families of MSS. He uses
Grimm, xxxiii.; Crane, xliii.; Sebillot, 2d series xxv.; and
Fleury, 123 seq. I have, on the whole, followed his recon-
struction, but have introduced, from the version in the
*' Seven Wise Masters," the motive for the father's anger
when learning that he would have, some day, to offer his son
water to wash in; Sir James, in a private communication,
concurs in the insertion. The folk versions are, in this in-
stance, peculiarly poor, and I have therefore had largely to
rewrite, preserving, however, the common incidents.

Formula. — The following formula gives the common
elements of the four parallels used by Sir James Frazer, with
my insertion of the bird prophecy (father-water, mother-
towel) :

Simple Boy — Sent to School — Learns Language of Dogs,
Frogs and Birds — Bird Prophecy (Father- Water, Mother-
Towel) — Hero Exposed — Intended Murderer Brings Back
Deer's Heart — Three adventures on Road — Dogs Warn
Burglary — Frog Restores Host to Sick Girl — Bird Prophe-
sies Papacy (one of three companions) — Pope Election —
Heavenly Sign (dove and bell) — Bird Prophecy Fulfilled—
Father Repentance.

Parallels. — Besides the four sources used by Sir James
Frazer, he gives two variants of the Breton from Melusine,

22f(y Europa's Fairy Book

i., cols. 300, 374, and the "Seven Wise Masters*' version,
with six variants: Russian, Masurian, two Basques, and a
Turkish one. In the Russian version the father- water,
mother-towel prophecy occurs, which could not have arisen
independently. In the Masurian version the prophecy is
more primitive (''Your mother will wash your feet, and
your father will drink the water"). In the remaining ver-
sions the prophecy is more vague, that the parents shall be
the son's servants. In the Pentamerone there is a story in
which a father has five simple sons whom he sends into the
world to learn experience. The younger returns with a
knowledge of the language of birds. But the rest of the
story is not of our type.

Remarks. — In his second paper {Arch. Rev. i., l6i seq.)
Sir James Frazer has many interesting remarks upon the
folk conception of the means of acquiring a knowledge of
the language of animals. This is generally done by a gift
of magic rings, or by eating magic plants (mainly fern) or
eating serpents (generally white). Sir James Frazer con-
nects the rings with serpents by suggesting that serpents
are supposed to have stones in their head which confer
magic powers {As You Like It, iv., 2.) He further
connects the notion of eating serpents with acquiring the
language of birds by referring to the views of Democritus
that serpents are generated from the mixed blood of diverse
birds and are therefore in a strict sense blood relations of
them; this idea, he suggests, may have arisen from the fact
that serpents eat birds' eggs. It would be an easy transition
in folk-thought to consider that serpents would understand
the language of the birds they ate and that persons eating
serpents would understand the language of both. So Sigurd
understands the language of birds, after eating the blood
of Fafnir the Worm. But all this throws little light upon
the story itself.

Bolte gives, i., 323-4, many folk-tales in which the hero

Notes 237

becomes not a pope but a king and compares the story of
Joseph in the Bible as possibly a source of the Prophetic
Dream of the father and mother waiting upon the son.
The transference to the pope may have been influenced by
the tradition given by Vincent of Beauvais {Spec. Hist.y
xxiv., 98) that Sylvester II. learned at Seville the language
of birds. There was also the tradition that at the election
of Innocent III., 1 198, three doves flew about the cathedral,
one of which, a white one, at last settled down upon his
shoulder. Raumer, Gesch. d. Hohenstaufen, ii., 595.

IX. THE THREE SOLDIERS

This tale is widely spread through Europe, being found
from Ireland to Greece, from Esthonia to Catalonia. It
is generally told of three soldiers, or often brothers, but
more frequently casual comrades. In Kohler's notes on
Imbriani, p. 356-7, he points out that there are three differ-
ent forms, in the first of which the fairy's gifts are recovered
by means of a defect produced, which only one of the
soldiers can cure. In the second form the latter part is
wanting, and in the third the two gifts are restored by
means of the third, which is generally in the form of a stick.
See English Fairy Tales, No. 32. In my reconstruction I
have followed the first form. Cosquin, XL, has a fairly
good variant of this, with comparative notes. Crane,
XXXL, gives, from Gonzenbach, the story of the shepherd
boy who makes the princess laugh, which is alHed to our
formula, mainly by its second part. And it is curious to
find the three soldiers reproduced in Campbell's Gaelic,
No. 10. In this version the magic gifts are wheedled out
of the soldiers by the princess, but they get them back and
go back to their "girls."

In the Chinese version of the Buddhist Tripitaka, a monk
presents a man who has befriended him with a copper jug,

238 Europa's Fairy Book

which gives him all he wishes. The king gets this from the
monk, but has to return it when he gets another jar which
is full of sticks and stones. Aarne in Fennia, xxvii., 1-96,
1909, after a careful study of the numerous variants of the
East and West, declares that the original contained three
gifts and arose in southern Europe. From the three gifts
came three persons and afterwards the form in which only
two gifts occur. Against this is the earliest of the Tripi-
taka versions, 51 6 a.d., which has only two magic gifts.
Albertus Magnus was credited with a bag out of which used
to spring lads with cudgels to assail his enemies.

X. DOZEN AT ONE BLOW

This story is familiar to English-speaking children as
Jack the Giant Killer, but it is equally widespread abroad
as told of a little tailor or cobbler. In the former case
there is almost invariably the introduction of the ingenious
incident, "Seven at a Blow," the number varying from
three to twenty-seven. I have adopted a fair average.
The latter part of the story is found very early in M. Mon-
tanus, Wegfuehrer, Strassburg, 1557, though most of the
incidents occur in folk tales scattered throughout the Euro-
pean area. Bolte even suggests that the source of the whole
formula is to be found in Montanus and gives references
to early chapbook visions in German, Dutch, Danish,
Swedish and English (i., 154-6). But the very numerous
versions in East Europe must in that case have been de-
rived from oral tradition from these. Something similar has
even spread to Greenland, where the story of the Giant and
the boy is told by Rae, Great White Peninsula. (See Grimm,
tr. Hunt, i., 364.) The Dutch version is told of Kobis the
Dauntless. Cosquin, who has two versions (8 and 25),
has more difficulty than usual in finding the full plot in
Oriental sources, though various incidents have obviously

Notes 239

trickled through to the East, as for example the hero
Nasnai Bahadur in the Caucasus, who overcomes his three
narts, or giants, very much in the same manner as our
tailor.

XL EARL OF CATTENBOROUGH

This Puss-in-Boots formula has become universally
European from Perrault's version, to whom we owe the
boots that occur in no other version, so that I have been
reluctantly obliged to take them off. But apart from this
the story in its entirety existed earlier in Straparola, xi., i,
and in the Pentamerone, and is found widely spread through
Italy (Pitre, 88; Imbriani, 10; Gonzenbach, 65, etc.), as
well as in Hungary (Jones and Kropf, No. i), Germany
(Grimm, 33a), and even in Finland (see Jones and Kropf,
P- 305)- Ii^ some of these cases the cat is a vixen (or female
fox), and the incident of the false bathing and the marriage
occurs before reaching the ogre's castle, as is indeed more
natural. I have, therefore, so far amended Perrault. In
most of the folk versions the miller's son betrays ingratitude
towards his animal protector, who sometimes reduces him
to his original state. This final incident, unknown to
Perrault, shows the independence of these versions from
that contained in his Mother Goose Stories. In Sweden
the hero, if one may speak Hibemically, is a girl, who turns
up her nose at everything in the palace as not being so
good as in her castle of Cattenburg (Thorpe quoted by
Lang, Perrault, p. Ixxi.). In India it is found in Day, Folk
Tales 0} Bengal, under the title of "The Matchmaking
Jackal," which has numerous Indian touches; thus the
jackal remembers the grandeur of the weaver's forefathers
and rolls himself in betel leaves. Sultan Darai, in the
Swahili version (Steere), has the stripping incident and
the no-talking trick, as well as the ingratitude at end.
Lang argues elaborately that it is impossible to determine

2^o Europa^s Fairy Book

the original home of Puss-in-Boots, though he seems to
own that it had one. His criterion is the absence or pre-
sence of a moral in the story, in this case the incident show-
ing the ingratitude of the Marquis. This occurs, as we
have seen, as far south as Madagascar, and as far east as
India, but, after all, does not seem to be the essence of the
story, though in one of the versions the cat does his tricks
for the miller because he had previously saved him from
the hunters. The late Mr. Ralston has an interesting
article on Puss-in-Boots in the Nineteenth Century, August,
1883, though in his days there was a tendency to explain
all fairy tales as variants of the Sun and Moon myths.

It is right that I should add that the servant's evening
salute has nothing to do with the story but is a tradition
in my own family, where my grandfather's servant used
to utter this rhyme in a sort of chant when bidding the
family good-night.

XII. THE SWAN MAIDENS

The Swan Maidens occur very widely spread and have
been studied with great diligence by Mr. E. S. Hartland in
two chapters (x., xi.) of his Science of Fairy Tales (pp. 255 —
347). In consonance with his general principle of inter-
pretation, Mr. Hartland is mainly concerned with the
traces of primitive thought and custom to be seen in the
Swan Maidens. Originally these were, according to him,
probably regarded as actual swans, the feathery robe being
a later symbolic euphemism, though I would incidentally
remark that the whole of the story as a story depends upon
the seizure of a separate dress involving the capture of the
swan bride. Mr. Hartland is inclined to believe partly
with P. Liebrecht in Zur Volkskunde, pp. 54-65, that these
mysterious visitors from another world are really the souls
of deceased persons (probably regarded as totemistic

Notes 241

ancestresses). In some forms of the story, enumerated
by Mr. Hartland, the captured wife returns to her original,
home, not when she recovers her robe of feathers but when
the husband breaks some tabu (strikes her, chides her,
refers to her sisters, sees her nude, etc.).

From the standpoint of "storyology" from which we are
mainly considering the stories here purely as stories, the
Swan Maidens formula is especially interesting as showing
the ease with which a simple theme can be elaborated and
contaminated by analogous ones. The essence of the
story is the capture of a bride by a young man who seizes
her garment and thus gets her in manu, as the Roman
lawyers say. She bears him children, but, on recovering
her garment, flies away and is no more heard of. Some-
times she superfluously imposes a tabu upon her husband,
which he breaks and she disappears (Melusine variant;
compare Lohengrin). This is the effective and affecting
incident of which Matthew Arnold makes such good use
in his Merman. It could obviously be used, as Mr. Hart-
land points out, in a quasi-mythological manner to account
for supernatural ancestry, as in the cases of the physicians
of Myddvai in Wales, or of the Counts of Lusignan. But on
this simple basis folk tellers have developed elaborations
derived from other formulae. In several cases, notably in
the Arabian Nights (Jamshah and Hasan of Bassora), the
capture of the swan maiden is preceded by the Forbidden
Chamber formula. Then when the bride flies away there
is the Bride-Quest, which is often helped by Thankful
Animals and aided by the Magical Weapons. When the
hero reaches the home of the bride he has often to undergo
a Recognition-Test, or even is made to undertake Acquisi-
tion Tasks derived from the Jason formula ; and even when
he obtains his wishes in many versions of the story there is
the Pursuit with Obstacles also familiar from the same
formula.
16

242 Europa's Fairy Book

Cosquin, ii., i6, has, with his usual analytical grasp,
seen the separable character of these various series of inci-
dents. He, however, attempts to show that all of them,
including the germ of the Swan Maidens, are to be found
in the East, and is successful in affiHating the Greek of
Hahn, No. 15, with the two stories of the Arabian Nights
mentioned above, as well as the Siberian version given by
Radloff, iv., 321, the hero of which has even derived his
name from the Jamshah of the Thousand and One Nights.

In my own version I have utilized a few of these incidents
but reserve most of them for their proper story environ-
ment. I have introduced, from the Campbell version,
the phrase "seven Bens, and seven Glens, and seven
Mountain Moors," which so attracted Stevenson's Catri-
ona, in order to point out as a remarkable coincidence that
Hasan of Bassora, in the Arabian Nights, flies over "seven
Waddys, seven Seas, and seven Mountains." It is diflScult
to understand that such a remarkable phrase should recur
accidentally in Bagdad and in the West Highlands. With-
out some actual intermediation, oral or literary, the hy-
pothesis of universal human tendency can scarcely explain
such a coincidence.

XIII. ANDROCLES AND THE LION

This weU-known story occurs first in the fables of Phaedrus,
though not in the extant form, only being preserved in the
mediasval prose version known as Romulus. It is also re-
ferred to in Appian, Aulus Gellius, and Seneca (see the
references in my History of ^sop, p. 243, Ro. III., i.). It is
told in Caxton's Esope, p. 62, from whom I have borrowed a
few touches. He calls his hero Androclus, whereas Painter,
in his Palace of Pleasure, ed. Jacobs, i., 89-90, calls the slave
Androdus. We moderns, including Mr. Bernard Shaw,
get our " Androcles " from Day's Sanford and Merton. It also

Notes 243

occurs in Gesta Romanorum, 104, edit., Oesterley, who gives

a long list of parallels in almost all the countries of Europe.
Benfey, in the introduction to his edition of Pantscha-
iantra, i., 112, contends that the story is of Oriental origin,
showing Buddhistic traits in the kindly relations between
the slave and the lion; but the parallels he gives are by no
means convincing, though the general evidence for Oriental
provenance of many of Phaedrus' fables gives a certain
plausibility to this derivation. From our present standpoint
this is of less importance since Androcles, though it has
spread through Europe and is current among the folk, is
clearly of literary origin and is one of the few examples
where we can trace such literary spread.

XIV. DAY DREAMING

I have given the story of the barber's fifth brother from
the Arabian Nights as another example of the rare instances
of tales that have become current among the folk, but which
can be definitely traced to literary sources, though possibly,
in the far-off past, it was a folk tale arising in the East.
The various stages by which the story came into Europe
have been traced by Benfey in the introduction to his edi-
tion of Pantschatantra, § 209, and after him by Max
Mueller in his essay "On the Migration of Fables" {Chips
from a German Workshop, iv., 145-209; it was thus a chip
from another German's workshop). It came to Europe
before the Arabian Nights and became popular in La
Fontaine's fable of Perrette who counted her chickens
before they were hatched, as the popular phrase puts it.
In such a case one can only give a reproduction of the lit-
erary source, and it is a problem which of the various forms
which appear in the folk books should be chosen. I have
selected that from the Thousand and One Nights because
I have given elsewhere the story of Perrette (Jacobs,

244 Europa's Fairy Book

Msop's Fables, No. 45), and did not care to repeat it in
this place. I have made my version a sort of composite
from those of Mr. Payne and Sir Richard Burton, and have
made the few changes necessary to fit the tale to youthful
minds. It is from the quasi-literary spread of stories like
this that the claim for an Oriental origin of all folk tales
has received its chief strength, and it was necessary, there-
fore, to include one or two of them in Europa's Fairy Book
(Androcles is another). But the mode of transmission is
quite different and definitely traceable and, for the most
part, the tales remain entirely unchanged; whereas, in the
true folk tale, the popular story-tellers exercised their
choice, modifying incidents and giving local colour.

XV. KEEP COOL

There is no doubt about the European character of this
tale, which is found in Brittany, Picardy, Lorraine, among
the Basques, in Spain, Corsica, Italy, Tyrol, Germany
(though not in Grimm), among Lithuanians, Moravians,
Roumanians, Greeks, Irish, Scotch, Danes, Norwegians
(Cosquin, ii., 50). The central idea of the Rage- Wager
is retained throughout, and in many places the punishment
is the same — the loss of a strip of skin. In all but three
instances the story is told of three brothers, which practi-
cally proves its identity. I have given the Irish version in
More Celtic Fairy Tales.

The "sells" however change considerably, though in
most of them the final d^noument comes with the death or
wounding of the wife. The pigs' tails incident is also very
common and is indeed found in another set of tales, more
of the Master Thief type. Campbell's No. 45 had an
entirely different set, some of them very amusing. Mac-
A-Rusgaich has all three meals at once and lies down. He
holds the plough and does nothing else; he sees after the

Notes 245

moiintain; literally casts ox-eyes at the master, and makes
a sheep foot-path out of sheep's feet. I have taken from
Campbell the direction to wash horses and stable within
and without, though it does not occur elsewhere. Yet
Mac-A-Rusgaich has a bout with a giant, in which he slits
an artificial stomach, like Jack the Giant Killer; and this
incident occurs in four other of the European tales, again
showing identity. "Keep cool" is thus an interesting
example of identity of framework, with variation of
incident.

XVI. THE MASTER THIEF

The sneaking regard of the folk-mind for the clever rogue
who can outwit the guardians of order (the ever-present
enemy of the folk) was shown in early days by the myth
of Rhampsinitus in Herodotus, ii., 121, which is found to
this day among the Italians (see Crane, No. 44, and S.
Prato, La Leggenda del Tesoro di Rampsinite, Como, 1882).
But the more usual European form is that I have chosen
for the text, the formula of which might be summed up as
follows :

Apprenticeship in thievery — Purse or life — Hanging
*' sell "—Master Thief— Three Tests— Horse from Stable-
Sheet off bed — Priest in bag — Horse from under (Thimib-
Bung).

Almost the whole of this is found as early as Straparola
i., 2, where Cassandrino is ordered by the provost of Peru-
gia to steal his bed and his horse and to bring to him in a
sack the rector of the village.

The purse incident occurs in Brittany, Piedmont, Tus-
cany, and Tyrol; in Iceland (Amason, p. 609) occurs the
man twice hanged which also occurs in Norway, Ireland,
Saxony, Tuscany, and in Germany (Kuhn and Schwartz,
362) ; in Servia (Vuk, 46) the Master Thief steals sheep by

246 Europa's Fairy Book

throwing two shoes successively in the road, which also
ocoirs in Bengal (Day, xi.) ; the theft of the horse occurs in
Brittany, Norway, Ireland, Tuscany, Scotland (Campbell,
40), Flanders, in Basque and Catalan, Russia and Servia.
The third test of kidnapping the priest occurs in Brittany,
Flanders, Norway, Basque, Catalan, Scotland, Ireland,
Lithuania, Tuscany. In Iceland the persons carried away
are a king and a queen.

The three tests of the Master Thief, the stealing of bed,
horse, and priest, occur as early as Straparola, i., 2, who
also has a somewhat similar story of the ''Scholar in Magic,"
viii., 5, which contains the zigzag transformation of the
Arabian Nights. Both forms occur in Grimm, 68, 192. While
the three tests are fairly uniform throughout Europe, the
introduction by which the lad becomes a thief and proves
himself a Master Thief varies considerably; and I have had
to make a selection rather than a collation.

In some forms the farmer has three sons, of whom the
youngest adopts thievery as a profession, which indeed it
was in the Middle Ages (as we know from the Cul-le-jatte
of The Cloister and the Hearth). In Hahn, 3, the Master
Thief has to bring a "Drakos" instead of a priest. Curi-
ously enough, in Gonzenbach, 83, the Master Thief has to
bring back a "dragu. "

In many of the variants the Master Thief executes his
tricks in order to gain the King's daughter by a sort of Bride
Wager. But in most cases he does them in order to escape
the natural consequences of his thievery.

XVII. THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM

The adult reader will of course recognize that this is the
story of Cupid and Psyche, as told by Apuleius, and trans-
lated with such felicity by Pater in his Marius, Pt. i., ch. 5.
Though the names of the gods and goddesses — Venus,

Notes 3^47

Mercury, Jupiter, Juno, Proserpine, etc. — are scattered
through the tale, it is now acknowledged on all hands that
it has nothing to do with mythology but is a fairy tale pure
and simple, as indeed is acknowledged by Apuleius who
calls it a "fabella anilis." From this point of view it is of
extreme interest to the student of the folk-tale as practically
the same tale, with the Unseen Bridegroom, the Sight Taboo,
the Jealous Mother-in-law, the Tasks, and the Visit to the
Nether-World, occur in contemporary folk-tales scattered
throughout Europe, from Norway (Dasent, "East o' the Sun
and West o' the Moon ") to Italy (Gonzenbach No. 15, Pitre
No. 18 given in Crane No. i. King of Love); for the vari-
ants elsewhere see Koehler on Gonzenbach. The earliest
form of the modern versions is found in Basile (1637),
Pentamerone v., 4, The Golden Root.

Now there are several circumstances showing the identity
of the ancient and modern forms of this story. All of
them contain the punishment for curiosity motive, which is
doubled both in Apuleius (with the coffer at the end) and
in Basile and Crane. In several of the folk- tales the Ant-
Help occurs in the performance of the tasks, and in Apuleius
the successive visits to Juno and Ceres evidently represent
the visits to the Queen-mother's sisters, often known as
ogresses, found in Dasent, Basile, and in Grimm 88. It is
possible, of course, that in some cases dim memories of
Apuleius have percolated down to the folk, as is shown
by the name of the hero in Pitre's version // R ed'Amore.
Kawczynski (Abh. d. Krakauer Akad. 1909, xlv. i) de-
clares for the derivation of the whole series of folk-tales
from Apuleius but against this is the doubt whether this
author was at all known during the Middle Ages.

But, to prove that the folk- tales were not derived directly
or solely from the classical romance they, in almost every
case, had a series of adventures not found there, including
the incidents, Obstacles to Pursuit, False Bride, and Sale

248 Europa's Fairy Book

of Bed. Now these incidents really belong to another
formula, that of the Master-Maid, in which an ogre's or
giant's daughter, helps the hero to perform tasks, flees
away with him, is pursued by the ogre, loses her beloved
through an Oblivion Kiss and has to win him again from
his False Bride by purchasing the right of spending three
nights with him. These incidents come in logically in the
Master-Maid formula but are dragged in without real
relevance into Cupid and Psyche; yet they occur as early
as Basile where there is a dim reminiscence of the Oblivion
Kiss. In reconstructing the formula I have therefore
omitted these incidents, reserving them for their proper
place (see Master-Maid).

Cupid and Psyche is of special interest to the student
of the folk-tale since it is a means of testing the mythological,
the anthropological, and the Indian theories of its origin.
The mythological interpretation is nowadays so discredited
that it is needless to discuss it, especially as we have seen
that the mythological names given by Apuleius are only
dragged in perforce. The anthropological explanation,
given most fully by Andrew Lang in his admirable introduc-
tion to Addington's translation of Apuleius in the Bihlio-
th^que de Carabas, gives savage parallels from all quarters of
the globe to the seven chief incidents making up the tale, but
leaves altogether out of account the artistic concatenation
of the incidents in the tale itself and does not consider the
later complications of the European folk-tales connected
with it. M. Cosquin and others bring in the Vedic myth of
Urvasi and Pururavas, but we have seen reason to reject the
notion that the tale is, in its essence, mythological, and
therefore need not consider its relation to Indian mythology.
Cosquin, however, gives reference to the tale of Tulisa taken
down from a washerwoman of Benares in 1833 (Asiatic
Journal, new series, vol. 2), which has the invisible husband
and the breaking of taboo, the jealous mother-in-law, and

Notes 249

the tasks. This is indeed a close parallelism sufficient to
raise the general question of relation between the Indian and
the European folk-tale. But the earlier existence of the tale
in Apuleius and Basile would give the preference to Euro-
pean influence on India rather than vice versa.

I should add that I have followed Apuleius in giving a
symbolic name to the heroine of the tale, in order to suggest
its relation to the classical folk-tale of Cupid and Psyche,
but not of course to indicate that it is in any sense mytho-
logical. The Descent-to-hell incident, which is found both
in the classical and in the modern European forms and
therefore in my reconstruction is only, after all, the applica-
tion of a common form to the notion of difficult Tasks, which
is of the essence of the story.

XVIII. THE MASTER-MAID

This is one of the oldest and widest spread tales of the
world, and the resultant formida was, therefore, more
than usually difficult to reconstruct. The essence of the
tale consists in the Menial Hero — Three Tasks — Master-
Maid Help — Obstacles to Pursuit — Oblivion Kiss — False
Bride — Sale of Bed — Happy Marriage. In essentials this
is the story of Jason and Medea, where we have the Tasks,
the Pursuit, and the False Bride, though the dramatic
genius of the Greeks has given a tragic ending to the tale.
Lang, in his Custom and Myth, pp. 87-102, has pointed out
parallels, not alone in modern folk-tales, like Grimm 92,
Campbell 2, Dasent 11, and Basile 11, but even in Mad-
agascar {Folk-Lore Journal, Aug., 1883), and Samoa
(Turner 102) while the Flight and Obstacles are found in
Japan and Zululand. Even in America there is the Algon-
quin form of the Tasks (School-craft, Algic Researches ii.,
94-104), and the Flight is given in an interesting article in
the Century Magazine, 1884. According to Lang's general

250 Europa's Fairy Book

views, he seems to regard these incidents as being universally
human and having no affiliation with one another, though
he entitles his essay, ''A Far Travelled Tale. "

The modern Folk-Tales, however, make it practically
impossible that these at least could have arisen independ-
ently. Many of them have an introductory set of incidents,
Jephtha-Vow, Herd-Boy, Shepherd-Boy, Prince; this I
have adopted in my version. But besides this the Tasks
are often identical, Cleaning Stable (Dasent, Campbell),
Finger-Ladder (Campbell, trace in Cosquin 32), Building
Castle (Grimm 113, Hahn 54); the Oblivion Kiss occurs
in Scotland, Germany, Spain, Tyrol, Tuscany, Sicily, and
Rome, all in connection with similar stories.

The tale has been especially popular in Celtdom. I have
enumerated no less than fourteen versions in my notes
on the ** Battle of the Birds" (Celtic Fairy Tales, p. 265).
There we have the Obstacles to Pursuit mainly in the form
of forest, mountain, and river, which the late Mr. Alfred
Nutt pointed out to be the natural boundaries of the Nether-
World in Teutonic Paganism. It is, therefore, possible that
our story has been ''contaminated" or influenced by the
notion of the " Descent to Hell. "

Here, as in the parallel case of Cupid and Psyche, we
find a classical story, with many of the incidents clearly
reproduced in modern Folk-Tales, while others have been
inserted to make the tale longer or more of the folk-tale
character.

At the same time the story as a whole is found spread from
America to Samoa, from India to Scotland, with indubitable
signs of being the same story dressed up according to local
requirements. The Master-Maid is, accordingly, one of
the most instructive of all folk-tales, from the poinc of view
of the problem of diffusion.

Notes 251

XIX. A VISITOR FROM PARADISE

This droll, in its two parts, occurs throughout Europe
as has been shown by Cosquin in his elaborate Notes to
No. 22. The Visitor from Paradise, for example, occurs
in Brittany, Germany, Norway, and Sweden, England,
Roumania, Tyrol, and Ireland. In some of the versions the
silly wife gives some household treasure to a passer-by
because her husband had said that he was keeping this
for Christmas, for Easter, or for " Hereaf terthis " and the
Visitor claims it in that name. (See More English Fairy
Tales.) The idea also occurs in the literatuje of jests in
Pauli, 1 5 19, Hans Sachs, and in Tresor du Ridicule, Paris,
1644. Cosquin has also traced it to Ceylon, Orientalist^
1884, p. 62.

The adventure of the door and the robbers is equally
widely spread in Normandy, Germany, Austria, Bosnia,
Rome, Catalonia, and Sicily. (Gonz., i., 251-2.) It forms
part of the tale of "Mr. Vinegar" in English Fairy Tales.
The two adventures are, however, rarely combined; Cosquin
knows of only two instances. I have, however, ventured
to combine them here instead of making two separate tales
of them.

In telling the story one has to slur over the pronunciation
of " Paradise," making the last vowel short, so as to explain
the misunderstanding about " Paris." I have retained the
Fa-vis motif as all through the Middle Ages, wayfarers from
and to Paris (wandering scholars or clerics) would be famil-
iar sights to the peasantry throughout Europe.

Bolte gives in full (ii., 441-6) a Latin poem by Wickram
in 1509 entitled, "De Barta et marito eius per studentem
Parisiensem subtiliter deceptis, " which is practically iden-
tical with the early part of our story and has this misunder-
standing about Paris and Paradise. It accordingly occurs
in most of the German books of DroUs as those by Bebd

252 Europa's Fairy Book

and Pauli, and it is possible that the folk versions were de-
rived from this, though they stretch as far as Cairo and
North India. See Clouston, Book of Noodles, pp. 205, 214.
In some of the folk-tales, there is an introduction in which
the Foolish Wife sells three cows, but keeps one of the three
as a pledge. Thereupon her husband leaves her until he
can find any one as silly, which he does by posing as a
Visitor from Paradise. This is more suitable for an intro-
duction for " The Three Sillies."

XX. INSIDE AGAIN

This story is one of the most interesting in the study of
the popular diffusion of tales, and I therefore give it here
though I have given an excellent version from Temple and
Steel in Indian Fairy Tales, ix., "The Tiger, the Brahman,
and the Jackal, " and have there discussed the original form.
Its interest, from the point of view of diffusion, lies in the
fact that it occurs in India, both early (see Benfey, i., 117)
and late (Temple, 12, Frere, 14), in Greece, both classical
(^sopic fable of the serpent in the bosom) and modern
(Hahn, 87, Schmidt, p. 3), and in the earliest mediaeval
collection of popular tales by Petrus Alfonsi (Disciplina
clericalis, vii.), as well as in the Reynard cycle. Besides
these quasi-literary sources ranging over more than two
thousand years, there are innumerable folk- versions col-
lected in the last century and ranging from Burmah (Semea-
ton, The Karens, 128) to America (Harris, Uncle Remus,
86). These are all enumerated by Professor ICrohn in an
elaborate dissertation, "Mann und Fuchs" (Helsingfors,
1 891). In essentials the trick by which the fisherman
gets the djin inside the bottle again, in the first story within
the frame of the Arabian Nights (adapted so admirably by
Mr. Anstey in his Brass Bottle), is practically the same
device. Richard I. is said, by Matthew Paris (ed. Luard,

Notes " 253

ii., 413-16), to have told the nobles of England, after his
return from captivity in the East, a similar apologue prov-
ing the innate ingratitude of man. This is derived from
the Karma Jataka, which was possibly the ultimate source
of the whole series of tales.

Amid all these hundred variants there is one common
idea, that of the ingratitude of a rescued animal (crocodile,
snake, tiger, etc.), which is thwarted by its being placed
back in the situation from which it was rescued. In some
cases the bystander who restores equilibrium is alone; in
most instances there are three of them ; the first two having
suffered from man's ingratitude see no reason for interfering.
This is the "common form" which I have adopted in my
version. In India the sufferer from ingratitude is some-
times a tree (a mulberry tree, in Indian Fairy Tales), but
the European versions prefer horses or dogs.

Now it is obvious that such an artificial apologue on
man's ingratitude could not have been invented twice for
that particular purpose; and thus the hundred different
versions (to which Dr. Bolte could probably add another
century) must all, in the last resort, have emanated from a
Single source. When and where that original was con-
cocted is one of the most interesting problems of folk-tale
diffusion ; the moralizing tendency of the tale, the animistic
note underlying it, all point to India, where we find it in
the Bidpai literature before the Christian era and current
among the folk at the present day. The case for Indian
origin is strongest for drolls of this kind.

I may add that the ingratitude of the man towards the
fox at the end is not so universal a tail piece to the story
as the rest of it, and is ultimately derived from the Reynard
cycle, in which I have also introduced it (see "Bruin and
Reynard").

But it occurs in many of the variants and comes in so
appropriately that I thought it desirable to add it also here.

254 Europa's Fairy Book

The substitution of a dog for something else desired also
occurs in the story of the Hobyahs in More English Fairy
Tales, where Mr. Batten's released dog is so fierce (p. 125)
that it drives one of the Hobyahs over on to the next page
belonging to altogether another story.

XXI. JOHN THE TRUE

I have followed Bolte's formula " Anmerkungen" 45,
keeping however as far as possible to the alternatives
nearest to Basile, iv., 9, and where that fails making use of
the Grimms' "Faithful John, " No. 6, one of their best told
tales. The story is popular in Ital/ where Crane; 344, re-
fers to six other versions. It is also found in Greece (Hahn
29), and Roumania (Schott, p. 144), and indeed through-
out the east of Europe. Traces of it in British Isles are but
slight.

In India, however, there are a number of very close
parallels (Day, 17-52; Knowles, 421-41; Frere, 98; and
Somadeva; edit. Tawney, i,, 519, ii., 251, which contains the
similar story of Vivara the True); Benfey, i., 417, draws
attention to other Oriental traits in the story -and aptly
compares the half-marble figure of the King of the Black
Islands in the Arabian Nights. The probabilities of an
Indian origin for this formula are rendered greater by the
early age of the Pantschatantra and Somadeva parallels.

On the other hand the sacrifice of the children for the
faithful servant has its closest parallel in the old French
romance of Amis and Amilun, where Amis smears Amilun
with the blood of his child to cure him of leprosy. The
analogy is so close as almost to force the assumption of
derivation. Koehler accordingly in his Aufsaetze, 1894, pp.
24-35, regards the tale as a development of the Indian
story influenced by the romance of Amis.

Notes 255

XXIL JOHNNIE AND GRIZZLE

I have followed Bolte's formula s. v. Hansel and Gretel,
15. i-. 115. though with some misgivings. Very few of
his variants have his section F, which he divides into
three variants: F i. Ducks or angels carry the children
over the stream. F 2. Or they throw out obstacles to
pursuit. F 3. Or the witch drinks up the stream and
bursts. F 2 is obviously ''contaminated" by the similar
incident i^i the Master Maid, and the existence of such
alternatives indicates, to my mind, an absence of a consist-
ent tradition as to the ending of the story, which obviously
ended with the baking of the witch in the oven. I have
combined, in my ending F i and F 2, the former from the
Grimms' "Hansel and Gretel"; I have also adapted their
title, with a reminiscence of Sir James Barrie,

The predicament of the farmer must have often really
occurred in the Middle Ages when famine was the rule
rather than the exception; and the decision to "expose'*
the children recalls the general practice in ancient Greece
and Rome and in Arabia. A touch of comedy, however,
is given to this grim beginning of our tale by the house
made of cookies and sweetmeats, probably derived from
the myth of a Schlarafenland of the Germans and similar
imaginations of the Celts (see More Celtic Fairy Tales).

The beginning of the tale occurs early in Basile, v., 8,
"Nennillo and Nennila, " in which the three kings' children
find their way home twice by similar devices, but at the
third time scatter peas, which the birds eat up. Perrault
has the same beginning in his "Petit Poucet, " which has
been Englished as "Hop o' my Thumb," who shares some
of the adventures of Tom Thumb, as well as of the valiant
Tailor. Lang has an interesting but, as usual, inconclusive
discussion of the incidents of our tale in his Perrault civ.-
cxi., and finds many of the incidents among the ICaffirs,

256 Europa's Fairy Book

Ztdus, and other savage tribes, but scarcely the whole set
of incidents from A to F, and that is what we want to find
in studying the story. Dr. Bolte finds several instances
where the full formula still exists in popular tradition. It
is surely easiest to assume that they were once brought
together by a folk artist whose bright little tale has spread
among various folks, with the alterations suggested by the
divergent fancy of the different folk minds.

XXIII. CLEVER LASS

The Clever Lass is of exceptional interest to the student
of the Folk-Tale because of its exceptionally wide spread
throughout Europe and Asia, and also because it is one of
those tales which have been made the basis of the theory of
the Eastern origin of all Folk-Tales. Bolte, in his elaborate
monograph on the formula {" Anmerkungen,'' ii., 349-73),
enumerates no less than eighty-six variants, twelve in
Germany, six in other Teutonic lands, thirteen in Romance
countries, no less than thirty-seven in Slavonic dialects,
seven in Finnish, Hungarian and Tartar, six in the Semitic
tongues, and also five in India, though there the parallelism
is only partial. But in the European variants the parallels
are so close and the riddles answered by the Clever Lass are
in so many cases identical, and the order of incidents is so
uniform that none can doubt the practical identity of the
story throughout the Western area. There occurs some
variation in the opening which, at times, takes the form of
the father of the Clever Girl finding a golden mortar and
giving it to the King, against the advice of his daughter who
foresees that the monarch will demand the accompanying
pestle. This seems however to be confined to the Teutonic
lands or those in immediate cultural connection with them.
The riddles about strongest, richest, most beautifiil, form
the opening elsewhere, and I have therefore chosen this

Notes 257

alternative. The variations, both in questions and answers,
are many, as is perhaps natural considering the popularity
of the riddle in the folk mind, which would make it easy for
a storyteller to make changes.

The King or Prince, in some of the variants, discovers
the cleverness of the farmer's daughter on a visit to the
farmer, when he elaborately carves and divides a chicken
on a method which the Clever Lass discerns. This however
does not occur so frequently except in Italy, and I have
therefore omitted it. The discovery of the theft by the
King's messenger is much more widely spread. (See
Crane, 382, and compare "Gobborn Seer," in More English
Fairy Tales.)

The Grimms, in their notes, point to a remarkable
parallel in the Saga of Aslaug, the daughter of Brunhild and
Sigiu-d. Here the King Ragnar demands that Aslaug should
come to him naked yet clothed, eating yet not eating, not
alone but without companion. She uses the fish-net as in
the Folk-Tale, bites into an onion, and takes her dog along
with her. From the last incident some of the Folk-Tales
have possibly taken the awkward attitude of limping along
with one of her feet on the back of a dog. But the first
incident, being dragged along in a fish-net, is so unlikely to
occur to anybody's mind without prompting, that one
cannot help agreeing with the Grimms that the incident was
taken into the Folk-Tale from the Saga, or that both were
derived from a common source. On the whole subject of
the curious ride, R. Kohler has an elaborate treatment in his
Gessammelte Schriften, i., 446-56.

The attraction of the riddle for the folk mind is well
known, and before the spread of cards appears to have been
one of the chief forms of gambling in which even life was
staked, as in the case of Samson or the Sphinx. In the
Folk-Tale it often occurs in the form of the Riddle-Bride-
Wager, in which a princess is married to him that can guess

258 Europa*s Fairy Book

some elaborate conundrum. The first two of Child's Ballads
deal with similar riddles, and his notes are a mine of erudi-
tion on the subject: on the Clever Lass herself see his
elaborate treatment, English Ballads, i., 485 seq.

It is perhaps worthy of note that the questions as to the
strongest, most beautiful, and richest occur in Plutarch's
Symposium, 152 a, and it is a striking coincidence that, in the
same treatise, 151b, occurs another practical riddle, how to
drink up the ocean, which occurs in several variants of the
Clever Lass. But there is no evidence of any story connec-
tion between the two riddles in Plutarch, and one can easily
imagine this sort of verbal amusement spreading from the
learned to the folk.

The plan by which the Clever Lass becomes reconciled to
the King, by carrying off what is dearest to her, is found in
the Midrash probably as early as the eighth century. A
still more remarkable parallel is that of the True Wives of
Weinsberg who, when that town was invested, were allowed
by the besiegers to carry off with them whatever they liked
best. When the town gate was opened they tottered forth,
each of them carrying her husband on her shoulders. But
whether the incident ever really occurred, and if it occurred,
whether the ruse was suggested by the Folk-Tale, cannot
now be ascertained.

Benfey, in an elaborate dissertation, first communicated
to "Ausland" in 1859, but now included in his Kleiner e
Schriften, ii., 156-223, argues for the Eastern origin of the
whole cycle, which he traces back to the "Seventy Tales of
the Parrot" (Suka Saptati) probably as early as the sixth
century. Here the vizier Sakatala of the King Nanda is
released from prison in order to determine which of two
identical horses is mare and which is foal, and which part
of a truncated log is root or branch. Benfey traces this and
similar riddlesome difficulties to a good deal of Eastern
literature in Tibet, Mongolia and Persia, and Arabia. But

Notes 259

he fails to find any very exact parallels in the European area
which, at that time, was very little explored. He finds the
nearest parallel in Wuk, No. 25, but this is by no means a full
variant of the other European tales and may have even been
"contaminated" from the East. Benfey notices the Saga
parallel but goes so far as even to claim this as being in-
fluenced by Eastern stories. Since his time a much closer
parallel has been found in Kashmir by Knowles' Folk Tales
of Kashmir, pages 484-90, repeated in Indian Fairy TaleSy
No. xxiv., "Why the Fish Laughed." But the parallelism
here extends only to the cleverness of the girl and the
ingenuity of her answers to the riddles, not to the actual
plot of the story which is so uniform in Europe. Altogether
we must reject Benfey's contention, at any rate for this
particular story.

XXIV. THUMBKIN

I have followed, for the most part, Bolte's reconstruction,
which practically consists of a combination of Grimm, 37
and 45. But in combining the two I have found it neces-
sary to omit sections D and E of Bolte's formula which
form the beginning of Grimm, 45, "Thumbkin as Journey-
man."

The notion of a baby the size of a doll might be regarded
as "universally human"; even the Greeks knew of mani-
kins no bigger than their thumbs and weighing not more
than an obolus (Athenaeus, xii., 77); there is an epigram
of the same subject in the Greek Anthology, ii., 350. But
the particular adventures of Thumbkin are so consistently
identical throughout Europe, especially with regard to the
adventures in the cow's stomach, that it is impossible to
consider the stories as independent. Cosquin, 53, has more
difficulty than usual in finding real parallels in the Orient.
In England, of course, Thumbkin is known as Tom Thumb

26o Europa's Fairy Book

(see English Fairy Tales) . In the days when mythological
explanations of folk-tales were popular, Gaston Paris, in a
special monograph ("Petit Poucet," Paris 1875) tried to
prove that Tom Thumb was a stellar hero because his
French name was given to the smallest star in the Great
Bear. But it is more likely that the name came from the
tale than the tale from the star.

According to Gaston Paris, the chief variants known to
him were Teutonic and Slav. Those of the Roumanians,
Albanians, and Greeks were drived from the Slavs. He
concludes that the French form must have been borrowed
from the Germans, and declares that it is not found in Italy
or Spain, but Cosquin, ii., gives Basque and Catalan vari-
ants, as well as a Portuguese one, and Crane gives a Tuscan
variant, 242, with other occurrences in Italy in note 3, p.
372. This only shows the danger of deciding questions of
origin on an imperfect induction.

The opening is not found in Grimm ; I have taken it from
Andrewsjfor which an excellent parallel is given in Crane,
Ixxvii., "Little Chick-pea." A similar beginning occurs in
Hahn, 56, "Pepper-corn."

XXV. SNOWWHITE

Snowwhite is of special interest to the students of the
folk-tale as being obviously a late product combining many
motifs from different, more primitive, or at least earlier
formulae. E. Boeklen, in his Schneewitchen Studien, I,
Leipzig 1910, suggests influence by Hansel and Gretel:
The Seven Ravens; The Sleeping Beauty; The Maiden
without Hands; One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes; False
Bride, etc.; and Bolte, i., 453, appears to agree with him.
Certainly almost every one of the incidents can be paralleled
in other sets of folk-tales. The combination "white as
snow, " "red as blood, " "black as ebony, " has already been

Notes 261

given in the present volume (see p. 173). Bringing back an
animal's heart instead of the proposed victim's is common
form as early as the Book of Genesis; and the trial of the
three beds is familiar to English children in Southey's
"Three Bears." It would seem that a story something
like "Snowwhite" was known in Shakespeare's time, as
there appears to be a reference to it in the main plot of
"Cymbeline" (see Germania, ix., 458).

The form I have given to the formula follows very closely
that of the Grimms' 53. It is one of their best stories and
occurs widely spread throughout Germany. Whether that
implies original composition in Central Europe cannot at
present be determined, but it certainly looks that way. I
have, however, omitted Bolte's F referring to the punish-
ment of the Queen, which is wanting in the majority of
the variants. No editor of a text would under similar
circumstances take account of so rare a variant.

LIST OF INCIDENTS

I GIVE in the following list the chief incidents that occur
in the preceding tales, using for the most part the nomen-
clature used in the notes or in the list of incidents at-
tached to my paper on "The Problem of Diffusion" in the
Transactions of the International Folk-Lore Congress, 1892,
pp. 87-98.

N. B. Incidents in Drolls are placed in italics. In some few cases,
the incidents are referred to only in the notes.

Acquisition Task, xii.
Animal Aid, xi., xvii.
Apple Speaking, xviii.

Bean Transformation, wdv.
Bird Aid, i.
Bird Election, viii.
Bird Prophecy, viii., xxi.
Bird Throwing, x.
Blood Resuscitation, xvi.
Bread Crumb Track, xxii.
Bride Quest, xii.

Captured Bride, xii., xxi.
Casting Sheep's Eyes, xv.
Castle Building Task, xviii.
Cheese Squeezing, x.
Children Sacrifice, xvi.
Cleansing Stable Task, xviii.
Cow's Stomach Refuge, xxiv.
Cure by Fruit, ix.

Descent to Hell, xvii., xviii.
Dogs in Bag, vi., xx.
Door Dropping, xix.
Dragon Slayer, xxi.
Dress Rhyme, i.

Enclosure in Bag, vi.
Envious Sisters, i., vii.
Exchange Series, ii.
Exposed Hero, viii., xxii.
External Soul, iii.

Fairy Godmother, i.
False Bathing, xi.
False Bride, xviii.
False Sale, xxiv.
Feather Dress, vii.
Feet Rhyme, i.
Finger Ladder Task, xviii.
Flea Bite Blows, x.
Flight from Ogre, xviii.
Forbidden Chamber, xii.
Fox in Briar Bush, vi.
Fox in Fish-cart, vi.

Giants Quarrelling^ x.
Girl in Bag, ii.

Helpful Animals, i.
Honey Trap, i.
Horse from Stable Theft, xvi.
Horse's Ear Guide, xxiv.
263

264

Europa's Fairy Book

Iced Bear's Tail, vi.
Inside Again, xx.

Jealous Brother-in-law, xvii.
Jealous Mother-in-law, xvii., xxv.
Jephtha Vow, xviii.

Language of Animals, viii.
Life Token, iii., vii.
Lollipop House, xxii.
Lost Shoe, i.
Love at Distance, xxi.

Magic Cudgel, ix.
Magic Dress, i.
Magic Purse, ix.
Magical Weapons, xii.
Menial Hero, xviii.
Menial Heroine, i.
Moon on Forehead, vii.
Mutilated Foot, i.

Nobility Test, xi.

Oblivion Kiss, xviii.
Obstacle Pursuit, xii., xviii., xxii.
Ogre Transformation, xi.
Overheard Boasting, vii.

Paradise Visitor, xix.
Pebble Track, xxii.
Planting Pigs' Tails, xv.
Poisoned Comb, xxv.
Poisoned Cup, xvi.
Poisoned Half -apple, xxv.
Pride before Fall, xiv.
Priest in Bag Ride, xvi.
Prince Rescue, xxv.
Punishment for Curiosity, xvii.
Purse or Life, xvi.
Pursuit Rhyme, i.

Quarrel of Limbs, vi.
Quest Tasks, vii.

Rage Wager, xv.
Recognition Test, xii.
Rescue from Dragon, iii.

Sale of Bed, xviii.

Scissors, iv.

Seven Bens and Seven Glens, xii.

Sight Taboo, xvii.

Sheet off Bed Theft, xvi.

Shoe Marriage Test, i.

Snow-white, Blood-red, xxv.

Speech Taboo, vii.

Stick Finger, xxii.

Substituted Children, vii.

Substituted Heart, vii., xxv.

Supernatural birth, iii.

Swan Maidens, xii.

Thankful Animals, xii., xiii.

Thief A pprentice, xvi.

Three Beds Trial, xxv.

Thumb Bung, xvi.

Thumbkin, xxiv.

Top-off, Half' gone. All- gone, vi.

Transformation by Fruit, ix.

Tree Rhyme, i.

Turned to Stone, iii., xxi.

Ungrateful Animal, xx.
Unicorn Captured, x.
Unseen Bridegroom, xvii.

Visitor from Paradise, xix.

Washing Horses within, xv.
Wolf Caught in Hole, xxiv.

X ata Blow, x.

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